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Politico...
Shutdown: Does GOP
have the edge this time?
By Jonathan Allen and John Bresnahan
February 23, 2011
A new batch of House Republicans getting hammered for shutting down the
government: That’s so 1995.
Times have changed. President Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton, Speaker
John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich. The new guys ran on slashing spending
and they’re showing they meant it. Meanwhile, Washington Democrats
wouldn’t cut a penny in their spending proposal, even though austerity
is the buzzword in state capitals and county seats around the country.
It all adds up to this: Republicans have less to fear from a government
shutdown now than they did when they endured the blame 15 years ago —
at least that’s the thinking in some GOP circles.
“The context is dramatically different,” said former Rep. Bill Paxon
(R-N.Y.), who was one of Gingrich’s top lieutenants. “We didn’t run on
an agenda of the kind of fiscal reform that the Republicans talked
about last November. I don’t think anybody is surprised or taken aback
by the fiscal agenda that congressional Republicans have pursued.”
In many ways, the political and policy context is different this time
around — the anti-spending sentiment among voters is very real, concern
over the deficit has entered the bloodstream of the American public and
the economy is in worse shape than it was in 1995. And judging from the
union wars in the Midwest, there’s not much love for the public sector
in America’s heartland.
Paxon also says Obama is making a mistake if he thinks he’ll climb in
the ring and clock Boehner the way Clinton knocked out the
chest-thumping Gingrich.
“I don’t think that the public is going to react the way he assumes
they will,” he said. “His assumption is that he can just waltz through
this, not offer anything substantive and people are going to direct
their ire at Republicans.”
Read the full story at Politico
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