Newt's Old Allies Warn Against Shutdown
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to defend the 1995 government shutdown. But many of his closest allies from that era see the episode as a mistake.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is expected to announce a run for president soon, but if he is to continue to defend the government shutdown that he was a part of in 1995, he will have to deal with the criticisms of some of his closest allies from that era.
Gingrich has been in the news lately for his defense of the government shutdown in 1995. In a em>Washington Post op-ed<, Gingrich argued that the shutdown was neither a mistake, nor did it cost Republicans politically in the long term:
The Washington establishment believes that the government shutdown of 1995 was a disastrous mistake that accomplished little and cost House Republicans politically.
The facts are exactly the opposite.
While the shutdown produced some short-term pain, it set the stage for a budget deal in 1996 that led to the largest drop in federal discretionary spending since 1969. The discipline imposed by this budget - overall spending grew at an average of 2.9 percent a year while I was speaker of the House, the slowest rate in decades - allowed us to reach a balanced-budget deal in 1997.
But those closest to him during that period disagree with his defense – a hurdle that Gingrich will have to overcome if he is to continue insisting on the shutdown’s success, especially given the specter of a government shutdown in the current Congress.
Dick Armey, who was majority leader during the 104th Congress, told FrumForum that Republicans “lost” the political chess match of the day.
“The shutdown was the right policy move, but we lost the public relations battle. There was, and still is, a natural tendency for people to blame the Republicans for a halt in government,” Armey, who is now the chairman of FreedomWorks, told FrumForum in a statement.
Armey was even more a critical of the shutdown when he said a few weeks ago, "I was critical at the time... I thought we were doing a damned fool thing."
For what it’s worth, Armey hints that he would not be as opposed to a shutdown today, as the media environment has become more balanced. “Today is very different from 1995. We have other ways of communicating our message through Twitter, Facebook, and talk radio,” he said.
Tom Delay, who was Majority Whip at the time, is otherwise unavailable for comment. But as NRO's Jim Geraghty alludes, it is unlikely that Delay would have kind words for Gingrich’s defense.
Indeed, Delay writes in his autobiography that Gingrich’s actions looked like the “tirade of a spoiled child”:
Negotiations spiraled downward, and after Clinton vetoed a stopgap spending bill, funding for government services ran out, and a shutdown began on November 13, 1995. Not long after, Gingrich made the mistake of his life. He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One and exit from the rear on a flight to the funeral of assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin. It was pitiful. The New York Daily News carried the headline “Cry Baby” above a drawing of Newt as a screaming baby in diapers. The Democrats even tried to take a blowup of the cover onto the floor of the House. Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost.
Gingrich’s presidential ambitions are clear, and it may not be long before he makes an announcement declaring his candidacy. But this candidacy will be hobbled by the defense of a shutdown that even his closest allies at the time now concede as a failure.
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