[myfavoritedog]

I agree with you in a lot of ways, although my problem with the center is:

When Democrats want to blow out the budget by spending $10 trillion and then centrist Republicans say, "Okay, we'll do $5 trillion", there's nowhere to go besides further to the right.

is to give either of those groups as little power as possible

The only two groups that even talk about decreasing the power of all the extremists are Libertarians and Conservatives. Those people have no voice in the center. The very lack of their agreeing to keep increasing the power of government labels them as "extremists".

[watwut]

Historically, democrats make debt smaller and republicans larger.

[myfavoritedog]

Actually, nobody makes the debt smaller. They monkey with the deficit, but the debt continues to grow.

But your original claim is a naive talking point based upon who happened to be President at the time. Often, the Congress has a lot more to do with what happens spending-wise.

Clinton was a good example. The Republicans were the ones who reined in the budget under Clinton, but somehow Clinton liked to talk about how he had "balanced the budget".