Government Shutdown Veterans: Don't Do It
Politico reports:
A new proposal would keep the government open through mid-March, but battle-scarred veterans of the 1995 federal shutdown are issuing a warning to House Republicans: Don’t dig in too deep.
Their memories of Speaker Newt Gingrich and his new Republican House majority welcoming a fight with President Bill Clinton and cheering a government shutdown are all too vivid for some. The real and political costs of that episode — furloughed workers, park closures and delayed veterans benefits, not to mention Clinton pummeling Gingrich in the ensuing spin wars — are too painful.
Lawmakers stepped back from the precipice on Friday, with Senate Democrats appearing to embrace a two-week measure by House Republicans that would fund the government until March 18 while targeting less controversial cuts backed by President Barack Obama.
But Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is still insisting that Democrats dig deeper for the second half of the fiscal year. He’s demanding they support a House-passed bill with $61 billion in cuts that Democrats dismiss as draconian. And those who had a front-row seat to the 1995 debacle are growing anxious.
“The House has every right to take the positions they took, but it cannot be their way or the highway,” said G. William Hoagland, staff director of the Senate Budget Committee from 1982 to 2002 who became the top budget adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). “In some ways, that’s where it’s similar to the position Speaker Gingrich took in the winter of 1995 where it had to be his way or no way.
“That was a failure of government and certainly a black mark on our elected leadership.”
While the political lessons of 1995 can be applied today, the situation is much different this time around.
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