Truth And Lies Of A Government ‘Shutdown’

In broad daylight, after having won a landslide victory last November, congressional Republicans are engineering the most embarrassing surrender since Napoleon at Waterloo. And the greatest outrage of it is that such a debacle need not ever take place. To this day, the GOP remains in a prime position to devastate its Democrat opposition and strike a fatal blow to the liberal juggernaut that threatens financial ruin for this country. But, having accepted the standard media diatribe that engaging in such a contest might be politically costly, Republican leaders are instead opting to backtrack and capitulate.

The issue at stake is the ongoing budget battle, which Democrats dropped on the GOP in anticipation of the massive turnover of seats to the right in the November 2010 mid-term elections. Rather than passing a budget of their own, which would have made their outrageous spending spree a front-page campaign topic on the eve of the election, they punted, and thereby left the nation’s treasury in ruins, while forcing the Republicans to pick up the pieces.

Ironically, incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R.-OH) could conceivably have accomplished just that, being in a prime position to make real cuts in the bloated and wasteful spending of the Democrats, while positioning himself and his party for even bigger gains in 2012. Yet the Democrats expected that he would not rise to this occasion, but would instead acquiesce in hopes of circumventing a “government shutdown” and avoiding the inevitable media attacks that would surely follow. At this point it appears that the Democrats’ gamble may well pay off.

Beltway Republicans live in acute fear of a government shutdown, and have bought into the deception that is relentlessly repeated regarding the infamous budget impasse that occurred in the fall of 1995. Shrouded in myth and misrepresentation, it is regularly wielded like a mace to bludgeon those cowering GOP Senators and Representatives. As a result, they have become paralyzed by the dread of any recurrence, even to the point of total capitulation on budgetary issues. It is an appalling situation indeed, and only proves the old axiom that a big lie, if repeated often enough, will eventually be believed.

In the first place, the 1995 government shutdown was not initiated by congressional Republicans, then under the leadership of Newt Gingrich in the House, and Bob Dole in the Senate. Rather, it was Bill Clinton’s veto of the budget they passed in both houses, and submitted to him, that brought Washington to its much trumpeted and hysterically overplayed “standstill.” The initial stalemate lasted a mere five days, from November 14 to November 19, 1995, before the Congress passed another continuing resolution budgetary band-aid.

Read More at GOPUSA by Christopher G. Adamo, GOPUSA