Post by jgaffney on Aug 11, 2008 16:39:17 GMT -5
You know, I was thinking about this over the weekend. Then, I read the articles in Sunday's paper about the faceoff in the House over the oil drilling amendments. There is talk that the Republican's will block a continuing funding resolution and, thus, shut the government down, if they don't get a vote on their drilling amendments. The article mentioned the last time the government shut down in 1995, but artfully elided over the reason for the shutdown.
Those of you who were paying attention at the time will recall that the new Republican Congress came to town in December 2004 and announced that one of their first priorities would be to balance the federal budget. When Clinton's budget was delivered in May 2005, it had $200 billion-a-year deficits in all of the out years. The budget, of course, was declared DOA in the House, and the Republicans got busy on writing their own budget. This budget was, of course, balanced because Gingrich had the power, backed by John Kasich on Ways and Means, to get spending under control.
When the budget resolutions were delivered to the White House, Clinton and Gore immediately started posturing about the "draconian cuts", which were actually trimming the rates of growth of some programs and eliminating redundant or ineffective programs. Clinton vetoed the resolutions and shut the government down. The Republicans held their ground for as long as they could, but finally relented and sent Clinton a budget he would sign. In later years, Clinton got religion and started signing the balanced budgets the Republican Congress was sending him.
I bring this up because that period was a clear defeat for the Liberal Philosophy that we can help all of the people, all of the time. It is only after Clinton left office that he has become a champion of balanced budgets when, in actuality, he fought it, kicking and screaming the whole way. Kinda like Welfare Reform.
