R i g h t a r d i a: Republicans will close down the government

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Republicans will close down the government

The Republicans are on the edge of closing the government down and it will take two months for the Democrats to overcome two GOP filibusters in the Senate to restore government operations.

According to the Huffington Post, "The Speaker (John Boehner) told the president that the House will not be put in a box and forced to choose between two options that are bad for the country (accepting a bad deal that fails to make real spending cuts, or accepting a government shutdown due to Senate inaction),"

The House has instead proposed a one-week spending bill that would cut government spending by $12 billion while funding the military through the end of September, when the fiscal year ends.

House Democrats quickly rejected the offer. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters it was time to put an end to the "sporadic, episodic" stop-gap bills and reach a final agreement. He said that Democrats would whip opposition to the House bill if it is brought to the floor.

House Republicans aren't willing to take yes for an answer, Hoyer said, and were demanding far more than they were entitled by their partial control of the government, noting that Democrats control the Senate and White House. Hoyer added:

You would think if you're going to reach a compromise, we get two, they get one. It appears that one side doesn't want to compromise.

If you think government shutdowns are common, they aren't . According to Wikipedia, there have only been four federal government shut-downs in the history of the US:

This will be the third GOP shutdown since 1990.

In October 1990, Democrats in Congress sought to reduce the federal deficit by implementing a surtax on the income of millionaires.

Republican President GEORGE H. W. BUSH followed through on a threat to VETO any budget legislation that included tax increases. The veto effectively shut down several federal agencies.

The 1995 "shutdown" of the United States federal government was the result of a conflict between Democratic President Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment and public health.

It took place after Clinton vetoed the spending bill which Congress sent him. The Federal government put non-essential government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996 . . .

The major players were President Bill Clinton and the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. Gingrich lost his speakership over the shut down, adultery and by insulting Barbara Bush.