While a government shutdown this year would be due to an impasse over a new program — the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare — the shutdowns in 1995 were largely over cuts to existing programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans had won a majority in Congress for the first time in 40 years the previous November. Led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, they demanded sharp cuts in government spending in discretionary programs, such as welfare, and so-called entitlements, like Medicaid and Medicare. When President Clinton vetoed the spending cuts, round one of the shutdown was underway. The White House and Congress quickly agreed to extend spending on a temporary basis, under the condition that the president agree to a plan to balance the federal budget. According to polls, Republicans quickly bore the blame for shutting the government down. Their hand was weakened when Gingrich told reporters he had forced a shutdown in part because the president made him exit Air Force One by the back door after returning from the funeral of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In his State of the Union address that January, Clinton was able to declare the "the era of big government is over." In November, he easily won re-election over one of the (reluctant) leaders of the shutdown, Republican Sen. Bob Dole. npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/09/20/224530832/not-so-fond-memories-from-the-last-government-shutdowns
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 05:27:04 +0000
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