February 25, 2011 2:35 PM

Republicans Blame Democrats for possible government shutdown

By
Stephanie Condon
Topics
Republicans ,
Democrats ,
Congress
Newt Gingrich (Credit: Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

With a possible government shutdown looming, Republicans are pressing Democrats to accept a short-term solution to keep federal operations running for an additional two weeks -- while cutting $4 billion from the budget.

"A government shutdown is not an acceptable or responsible option for Republicans," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia said on a conference call today, as the Associated Press reports.

If Senate Democrats don't accept the two-week plan, "they are then actively engineering a government shutdown," added Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.).

Earlier in the week, Senate Democrats put forward their own temporary plan -- and similarly said the other side would be at fault for causing a government shutdown.

Funding for much of the federal government will expire on March 4 unless Congress passes a new funding resolution. The GOP-led House last week passed a bill that would keep the government operating through the end of the fiscal year, but the measure included $61 billion in budget cuts that Democrats find unacceptable.

With that fateful date looming, comparisons to conditions that led to the 1995 government shutdown are inevitable. Many, like Alice Rivlin -- who served as President Clinton's budget director at the time -- are saying Republicans won't want to relive the experience. Most who experienced it, she told Hotsheet, "do not remember it pleasantly."

"It was public relations disaster for the Gingrich team, and I think Mr. Boehner knows that," Rivlin said.

It turns out, however, that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich doesn't quite remember it that way.

"The Washington establishment believes that the government shutdown of 1995 was a disastrous mistake that accomplished little and cost House Republicans politically," Gingrich wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post today. "The facts are exactly the opposite."

While Gingrich, who is considering a presidential run, said a government shutodown isn't an ideal situation, he argued it would be "far worse" for House Republicans to go back on their commitment to cutting tens of billions from the budget immediately.

"Work to keep the government open, unless it requires breaking your word to the American people and giving up your principles," he wrote. "Becoming one more promise-breaking, Washington-dominated, sellout group is a much worse fate - politically and ethically - than having the government close for a few days."

Gingrich gave evidence that the shutdown paid off politically for Republicans. In 1996, the GOP lost only a handful of House seats and managed to hold onto its majority -- the first time in history the GOP did so in a year that a Democrat won the White House. He also pointed out that the House GOP subsequently reached a balanced budget deal with Mr. Clinton in 1997.

Gingrich wrote that the GOP's efforts to balance the budget were "distorted" by the media. CBS News Senior Political Producer Rob Hendin this week pointed to at least one piece of evidence that Republicans were blamed for the shutdown: The Chicago Tribune wrote that the shutdown occurred because of "the power of a committed minority - namely the House Republican freshman class - to force its will upon the system."

In response to the House Republican's latest plan to cut $4 billion in two weeks, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of Senate Democratic leadership, said that Republicans and Democrats could come to some kind of compromise, as the AP reports. But he added: "they are threatening to force a shutdown if they don't get everything they want right away. That is reckless and irresponsible."

Cantor reportedly said today that the $4 billion in cuts in the GOP's latest plan will come from eliminating earmarks and speeding up the spending cuts that Mr. Obama has asked for in his 2012 budget.


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by ken huffman February 27, 2011 9:25 AM EST
Who is holding back the two trillion dollars that should be put back in our society? "where it came from" The GOP and wall street are trying to break the American people down during President Obamas term. They will do anything to make him look bad! When they keep saying "NO NO NO" to anything he trys to do. We the people will make a comeback in 2012 and get rid of the paid for leaders. And I agree with the political contributions coming only from the voting public. Also $100.00 limit sounds sencible
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by mountainstates1 February 28, 2011 11:23 AM EST
I agree...I don't think anyone (who doesn't watch Fox News) actually believes the garbage spewing out of Republican elected officials anymore!
by 1176894 February 28, 2011 4:34 PM EST
you are saying what I have been saying all along,I hope that the American people will wake up and see the truth before the next election day,if they don't I an afraid there will no longer be an America as we know it for the average American citizen
by lmolway February 27, 2011 7:38 AM EST
Hmm... I thought elephants had a good memory. Evidently the republicans don't live up to their mascot. Lies seem to attract more followers than the truth, but the truth always comes out.
Reply to this comment
by euge005 February 26, 2011 9:12 PM EST
Come on, Mangler and Jenny. No one will read a huge post like you copy into these blogs. Keep it simple and truthfull. It wins much more support.
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by euge005 February 26, 2011 8:48 PM EST
Standard plot, take funds from women, infants and children, health care and the EPA to pay for their piddling excuse for the budget cut they are screaming about. Billioniares have no need for public health care and live in airconditioning. No need for clean air or water. They drink champagne. And the tea party suckers that just entered politcis are totally fooled.
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by hakori February 26, 2011 1:11 PM EST
Oh, my! Republicans blaming others--how original. Excuse me, but I've never know any conservative to take responsibility for anything negative even when they're almost entirely responsible, but they're more than willing to take responsibility for the postive even if they had nothing to do with it.
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by euge005 February 26, 2011 9:10 PM EST
lol, you read the lizard's play book, written by Carl Rove. Take the bad things you support and call them strenghts. Prentend they are good things not bad. Repeat the lies as often as possible (ala Chaney). Just who was it said that the ignorant masses will sooner believe a huge lie than a small one? Hint, it was a German with an odd stash. Rove seems to be channeling that evil.
by eddee4911 February 26, 2011 11:25 AM EST
HOW DOES OUTSOURCING affect the our economy. SIMPLE. When a job is outsourced an AMERICAN loses the job. Look around you, companies have closed down and relocated overseas. How many of your friends and neighbors are unemployed. COUNTLESS. It's all because of OUTSOURCING. GREED of the rich REPUBLICANS who own or head these businesses don't care if the poor or middle class AMERICANS have a job just as long as they get richer.

How can we ever recover from the recession? Answer is never unless we stop outsourcing and buy only "MADE IN USA" products or when the third world country's wages and cost of living equals ours. Only then can we compete in cost for the products. Our only advantage is the label "MADE IN USA".

So you poor and middle class REPUBLICANS stop being like a KOOL AID DRINKER. Don't be mesmerized by the present day JIM JONES called the REPUBLICANS before they OUTSOURCE your job and be UNEMPLOYED. DON'T BE GULLIBLE, THINK.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8618-503544_162-20036524.html?assetTypeId=41&messageId=10454845&tag=contentBody;commentWrapper#ixzz1F5CBOq8b
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by RobAla February 26, 2011 8:31 AM EST
With more than a $14 trillion national debt, and projections that we will add another $1.65 trillion yo it this year - spending cuts are the only sane position. How can anyone seriously think that the nation should continue with massive irresponsible federal over spending?

We are on a runaway train, and the curve of economic collapse is ahead. President Obama's debt commission stated that what we are doing is unsustainable. How can anyone think that these small (less than 2% of the budget) cuts in federal spending is wrong??? Actually, we need large spending cuts to avoid a disaster. We would need to cut $500 billion each year for 3 years, just to begin to break even. I doubt that will happen, but we have to get this insanity under control.
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by pasha128 February 26, 2011 9:41 AM EST
And you and others crying incessantly about the DEBT Over 10 TRILLION under 3 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS alone) continue to support the 2011 TEA PARTY REPUBLICAN proposals to add over $3 TRILLION to the debt over the next 10 years. Reversing the Democratic cuts to pay for the 2003 REPUBLICAN ENTITLEMENT called MEDICARE PART D and TAX CUTS NOT OFFSET BY SPENDING CUTS.
by eddee4911 February 26, 2011 11:22 AM EST
HOW DOES OUTSOURCING affect the our economy. SIMPLE. When a job is outsourced an AMERICAN loses the job. Look around you, companies have closed down and relocated overseas. How many of your friends and neighbors are unemployed. COUNTLESS. It's all because of OUTSOURCING. GREED of the rich REPUBLICANS who own or head these businesses don't care if the poor or middle class AMERICANS have a job just as long as they get richer.

How can we ever recover from the recession? Answer is never unless we stop outsourcing and buy only "MADE IN USA" products or when the third world country's wages and cost of living equals ours. Only then can we compete in cost for the products. Our only advantage is the label "MADE IN USA".

So you poor and middle class REPUBLICANS stop being like a KOOL AID DRINKER. Don't be mesmerized by the present day JIM JONES called the REPUBLICANS before they OUTSOURCE your job and be UNEMPLOYED. DON'T BE GULLIBLE, THINK.
by pasha128 February 26, 2011 8:01 AM EST
Someone has to block the 2011 TEA PARTY REPUBLICAN cuts to border security intended to increase the illegal immigrant population in this country.
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by euge005 February 26, 2011 9:27 PM EST
Interesting point I had not noticed before. Good job. We need watch towers with snipers and land mine. But the border is only the front line when you have 12 million infiltrators. You have to jail the employers to make any inroads into this criminal population. And most of them are repubs. Like that will happen soon.
by ToolMangler1 February 25, 2011 9:53 PM EST
What has the GOP done for workers?
by Clint C. Gold Reprinted from the Tulsa World Newspaper 10/24/99

Not too long ago, my wife and I attended a TV football party in south Tulsa. With a lopsided score, the conversation turned to a livelier subject -- politics. The party was, of course, top-heavy with Republicans. With each view point expressed their faces became more flushed, eyes bulging a little more and veins popping in their foreheads as they railed against the liberal programs.
Finally a lone, liberal voice asked: "Will you people name me one bill your party ever passed to help the working man of this country?" The question created much moaning and groaning, and someone sputtered, "Well, what have the Democrats done?"
The liberal responded with a few programs and was interrupted by howling and disdain. He told them that he had not promised they would like the programs and then he asked to be allowed to complete his statement -- a difficult task to ask of Republicans.
He spoke of:
Social Security;
Medicare-Medicaid;
Peace Corps;
unemployment insurance;
welfare (for the poor and corporate);
civil rights;
student grant and loan programs;
safety laws (OSHA); environmental laws;
prevailing wage laws;
right to collective bargaining (which brought about paid medical insurance, paid vacations, pensions, etc.);
workers' compensation;
Marshall Plan;
flood-disaster insurance;
School Lunch Program;
women's rights.

He spoke of:
the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage, instituted child labor laws, and
set up time-and-a-half pay for over a 40-hour week.

He also mentioned the:
FHA-HUD with its public housing,
urban renewal and 44 million residential homes (before WWII almost 70 percent of our nation were renters; by the 1970s this had been reversed).
And farm-conservation subsidies -- USDA programs, Farmers Home Administration made loans (the bankers didn't want to make rural loans), the loans enabled flood-control on lakes (more than 3,000 in Oklahoma alone), established the rural water districts, and set up the rural electricity agency (REA).
The GI Bill was passed, which the Republicans at the time bitterly opposed.
The Republicans were salivating over millions of returning veterans to hire as cheap labor. More than 8 million GI have used college benefits, creating millions of entrepreneurs; most of us had never dreamed of college.
For the unemployed GI, there was $20 a week for 52 weeks to help get started (a lot of money in those days). The Veterans Administration provided more than 2 million home loans.
For the bankers at the football party, it was pointed out that the liberals saved their industry with the creation of FDIC and FSLIC, insuring their deposits, and saved Wall Street with the establishment of the Securities Exchange Commission.
The oil men came on bended knees to FDR at a time when East Texas oil was 4 cents a barrel and begged him to save their industry. He did; prorationing overturned the rule of capture and the days of flush production were over. Prorating has served this great industry (and nation) well.
And the list went on and on, but of course this group didn't let him get halfway through. He noted the Republicans in the group were weary, inattentive, so again he challenged them to offer up any Republican legislation examples.
"I'm sure your party has authored one or two comparable bills from time to time, but I can't think of any, and apparently you can't either. What it boils down to is this: the liberals dragged you into the 20th century scratching and screaming with your heels in the mud, fighting anything that's progressive, everything that's made this country great.
You Republicans have never understood that the spending power of blue-collar workers, obtained through Democrats and unions, is what really made this country great. You really believe "The Good Life" was obtained from your own endeavors. You cloak your greed in religion and patriotism, railing against any form of tax, never comprehending that these programs have benefited all of us and our country."
Well, I almost didn't make it out of the house. My wife and I didn't even get to see the end of the football game.

Clint C. Gold is former mayor of Moore, OK and a retired savings and loan executive
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by liberalme February 25, 2011 10:03 PM EST
Sure wish I'd been there for that one!

The truth is insignificant to Republicans, that's why they get angry.
by ToolMangler1 February 25, 2011 10:25 PM EST
having read this articlemany times, I has come to my attention that The GOP has done some good things in the distant 'past' but in the last ten years their energy has been directed toward 'Unseating the Democrats and anything they have done' rather than 'growing' America. When this current group of GOP wannabes and Tea Party failures took office, they claimed a "MANDATE" (which they never had) and immediately set out to "RIP" everything Democratic out of the constitution and by-laws of America. The 'alleged' mandate was really a "Demand for JOBS", but they were so 'single minded about getting rid of Democrats that they lost sight of that little piece of "REALITY". I want "ANY" Republican to show me "ONE JOB THEY CREATED". Here is the GOP legacy fot the past two years. They stonewqlled 'EVERY' piece of legislation brought forward by a Democrat and a few Republican bills that the Dems agreed to also. They spent this entire first part of the 111th congress attempting to destroy the Health care Law that Obama managed to get passed "For 30 million Americans without healthcare". When that failed, they tried to defund an existing law (that they didn't write) just to hurt a "Democratic President". Back to the main point "Where are the JOBS"?????????
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by jeanneyess February 25, 2011 9:23 PM EST
For starters, I wouldn't consider any kind of conversation with the Republicans about the budget until the IRS recieves a listing of all offshore tax evasion felony bank accounts and balances for December 31, 2010 can be verified and with on an acknowledgement form that recognizes that a complete history of that and any other tax evasion accounts will be made available to the IRS by April 1, 2011, accounted for in full to their date of origin and all back taxes and interest are paid or arrangements made for the complete payment of all taxes due with the IRS by April 15th to the satisfaction of the IRS, or the IRS will take full action as is normally taken, notarized, to reach the IRS by April 1, 2011. And that's just for starters.

Once the IRS can offer a figure of the monies to be taken in for taxes for the year 2010 and all back taxes to be deposited to the US Treasury, THEN, the President can make an appropriate budget for the year 2011, in consideration of the manifest increase in collected taxes, deficit paid, and allowances for state budgets allocated.

In the meantime, the American budget will work on the assumption that the taxes and interest on those tax evasion accounts will be paid in full, to afford to begin the establishment of universal pre-school for the school year 2011-2012, all grants and funding for state colleges and universities will be fully funded, all grants for medicine, mental health, education and other funding that was killed to save funds for the wealthy will be put back, and monies to be given to corporations that have been making a profit for the last 4 years, paying corporate executives bonuses over 5% of their annual salaries, paying executive salaries over 20 times their average employees' income, and/or paying a dividend over 3% the average employees' income will cease and decist until a time that the corporation shows an actual before tax loss.

All employers, including the government Federal, State, City/Town, and Municipal will pay into Social Security for their employers. They may elect to add to their employees' Social Security but in no way will they be allowed to replace the employees' Social Security, that no employee will ever be caught without credits for disability should that misfortune happen to the employee at any time, whether full or part time employees.

At no time in the future will any resident be in a situation of abject homelessness or without food for themselves or their dependents. That is in contempt of the purpose behind the laws presented in the American Constitution, and if it is happening anywhere in the United States or it Territories it needs to be addressed first by the police or social services to investigate and then be assigned a case worker to address the incident of this event and then to remediate the situation immediately. THERE SHALL BE NO HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD WITHOUT APPROPRIATE EMPLOYMENT AND SUITABLE INCOME WITHOUT ALL NECESSARY BENEFITS NECESSARY FOR ADEQUATE LIVING NECESSITIES FOR A DECENT AND HUMANE LIFE WITHIN THE BORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS COMMONWEALTHS. ANY PERSON KNOWING OF A PERSON, PERSONS, OR FAMILY IN JUST NEED MAY ANNONYMOUSLY CALL THE 800 NUMBER--------.

And with all my education and experience, this is what America means to me, and John Boehner and his Rich and Wealthy greedy and Avariced followers can go and make another country, because we the giving and sharing, the working hard when you can and the caring for the sick when you are well, and they will take care of you when you need it, that sounds an awful lot like Communism, was called the Plymouthe Bay Colony, and because of the sharing of the work and the peaceful moments, the hope and the faith, and the common future of all, this is where we came to have a "thanks giving" from which the core principles of America were decreed, and because of which we are here still, and not ruled by the Spanish from Mexico and the Islands of the Caribbean to our South, because of the faith of the these pilgrims who shared a village and wove a country, we have America, and let no person believe they are above the other, that they need not fish or plant or hunt or bake or wash the clothes or gather the berries, because we all came here on one boat, equal in the eyes of the Lord, and still equal in the eyes of the Lord, and for as long as we remember this, we shall live in peace and harmony, and when there are ill we take them to bed and care for them, and when we are ill they take us to bed and care for us, and only in this wave did we survive and that we shall always survive, and so the Lord said this place will be like the land that was lost, fertile and green with forests and rivers and freedom and harmony shal reign, and it shall be named America of the many people and they will bring only their best with them when they come to its shores and be good to one another and share and in that way America will become great.

God Bless America.
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by liberalme February 25, 2011 9:36 PM EST
As much as I agree with you, we all know that "ain't happenin".

Nothing would serve this country better than what you have stated but in reality it will be done as soon as then convict the Bush regime for invading an unarmed country and held responsible for the deaths of over 4500 soldiers, the hundreds of thousands of troops injured and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians maimed and murdered.

It will never happen. Good points though.
by 34sender February 25, 2011 10:23 PM EST
jgg supports tax evasion.


This is a typical "small government in the money but HUGE government control in the personal liberties" conservative. Hypocrisy to the max!
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