Boehner was not only playing off of Obama’s policies, he’s using the president’s language. “With few exceptions, it is a speech I could have given,” he said of Obama’s address. “Probably not as well. It was a very conservative speech … if you want to get into ideology. There were very few parts of this that I disagreed with.” This is a hook by which Boehner hopes to entrap Democrats. What Boehner is lauding in Obama is his rhetoric about the strict limits of federal spending. By doing so, Boehner hopes to drive a wedge between the president and his congressional wing. Obama may be thrifty, but looking at Hill Democrats, says Boehner, “From everything I’ve seen, it looks like the era of big government spending is back. … My question to my Democratic friends is how are you going to pay for it?”