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February 21, 2011 09:28 PM UTC

Republicans Keep Banging Heads on Same Wall

  • 27 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

On Saturday the House voted on a federal budget that cuts some $60 billion in spending, decimating many longstanding programs in the process. Republicans pushed the bill through largely along partisan lines, and now the Senate will take up debate as a potential government shutdown looms.

Sound familiar? It should, as The Associated Press reports:

Few memories haunt Republicans more deeply than the 1995-96 partial shutdown of the federal government, which helped President Bill Clinton reverse his falling fortunes and recast House Republicans as stubborn partisans, not savvy insurgents.

Now, as Congress careens toward a budget impasse, government insiders wonder if another shutdown is imminent – and whether Republicans again would suffer the most blame…

…Each party blamed the other. But public opinion soon swung toward Clinton and the Democrats. House Speaker Newt Gingrich didn’t help himself by suggesting he had triggered the shutdown out of pique because Clinton had made him ride in the back of Air Force One. Friends called it the biggest mistake of Gingrich’s career.

Republican lore portrays the 1995-96 shutdown as a political disaster. Lawmakers who lived through it have vowed: Never again.

Well, never again…except for again. Republicans are trying hard to spin this in advance so that the public won’t blame them in the event of a shutdown, but that’s a tough sell when they’ve spent the last year crowing about how they’re going to do nothing but cut, cut, cut.  

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27 thoughts on “Republicans Keep Banging Heads on Same Wall”

  1. Republicans are all over the talking head shows prepping the American public about why this isn’t their fault.

    Where are the Dems?  This shutdown needs some advance work to backfire on the Republicans.

    1. Why snatching defeat from the jaws of victory of course.

      I think a lot of Democrats aren’t sure what to do, many because they are focused on hanging on to their particular job rather than selling what’s right for the country.

      1. political ladder climber extraordinaire and squishy Democrat.

        Ralph, as always, makes relevant observations but the talking heads are mostly pro-Republican so getting on their shows is no guarantee that Democrats will get equal time on the issue.

        1. And while they were saying “jobs, jobs, jobs” a lot – most weren’t doing anything about the economy. And you’ve now got most democrats talking about the deficit rather than jobs – which is the last thing we need today.

          1. I doubt that Jared Polis “wasn’t doing anything about the economy”.  You are starting to sound like a mini-me David Sirota

            Boilerplate Sirota article

            1. Present issue

            2. Present Democrat politician X’s position on issue

            3. Present David Sirota’s perfect solution to the issue

            5. Ignore Republican positions on the issue

            4. Attack politician X for not embracing Sirota’s perfect position

            5. Remind readers that Democratic politicians are all bums and we should be content with Republican rule until the perfect Democrat comes along.

            3. that would have helped boost the economy & reduce unemployment. Even in the lame duck session when suddenly bills were getting passed I didn’t see even an attempt.

              I’m not asking for perfection. But I would like to see some actual activity…

              2. I hate it when people use the generic “they” to stereotype a situation.  Not asking for perfection immediately takes you out Sirota territory.  The only differences between Sirota and Rosen are the reasons why they hate Democratic politicians.  It is not surprise that they both get paid by the same employer.  Attack from the right and attack from the left with the same purpose, to destroy any elected Democratic politician.

                I seem to remember in a recent state of the union speech something about streamlining government and consolidating duplicate effort to relieve regulation overload on businesses.  There were also some funds available for transportation projects that got rejected by some Republican governors.  Do any of those count as efforts to create jobs.

                1. I seem to remember in a recent state of the union speech something about streamlining government and consolidating duplicate effort to relieve regulation overload on businesses.

                  G.W. Bush in his SOTU speech said we will not leave our children a mountain of debt. Talk is cheap.

                  There were also some funds available for transportation projects that got rejected by some Republican governors.

                  Counts but is small potatoes and was only done, IMO, because it was an easy try.

                  1. government and reduce unnecessary regulation to help businesses doesn’t count as a Democrat doing something to help our economy create jobs?

                    You get to make these broad sweeping condemnations of Democrats and then when people bring up specifics you discount them as unimportant while at the same time ignoring providing any specifics yourself to back up your claims and name politicians who are slacking.

                    You might be right about Democrats not being focused enough on economic recovery but you are way the fuck off the mark to say that Obama isn’t any better than Bush.  You are model moderate Democrat only in your own mind.

  2. and behind this vote will be the vote on raising the debt limit.

    The problem for Republicans this time around is that they only control the House and not the Senate like they did in 1995.  They can’t pass it through the Senate and then gang up on President Obama making him the bad guy.

    In 1994, people believed that Republicans had the best interests of the nation at heart instead of being whores for the rich.  The Bennet/Buck campaign showed that it is a lot easier now days to portray Republicans are mindless extremists who don’t understand economics which come to think of it is right on the mark.

  3. In the same piece that Ari links us to in his Morning News diary, Palin sets our minds at ease about the whole government shut down thing:

    She said that “the government receives so much revenue” every day that she doubted the money would run out to pay for critical operations

    .

    Guess the government is just rolling in oodles of fresh funds every day! More than they need, those whiney rascals! Great news.  All that GOP talk about needing draconian budget cuts? False alarm according to Sarah and who could doubt such a brilliant and knowledgeable gal?  

          1. Sarah: All of them. (smirk furtively and wink at the camera)

            Google??? — this is why no one should consider Palin as being a serious politician, or even a commentator.  What politician, or FOX talking-head, EVER admits to doing an internet search (it’s just so much easier, and traditionally accepted, to just MSU)??

  4. are almost as fun as many of the Republican Governors.

    “Keeping Up With the Christies” a New York Times editorial

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02…

    There is no sound economic justification for the decision by Gov. Rick Scott of Florida to reject $2.4 billion in federal financing for the vital Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail project. Political pandering to his Tea Party supporters is the only explanation we can come up with.

    Over a decade in the planning, the 84-mile corridor was on the verge of construction, with guarantees from private entrepreneurs that they would absorb any cost overruns and operating deficits for the state. They anticipated 24,000 new jobs and a cornucopia of business growth for recession-mired Florida.

    Why would anyone want anymore “failed stimulus” money for their states?

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