Sunday, November 14, 2010

Big Government Mistaken On 1995 Government Shutdown


Big Government posted an "Open Thread" article on their website Sunday regarding government shutdown and their support of a repeat.
Today, in 1995, the Federal Government began a partial shutdown of non-essential services. While most of the American public barely noticed this, the GOP, unfortunately, quickly blinked. Hopefully, we won’t make the same mistake again.
I thought this brief post was interesting.  Big Government's editorial board believes the government shutdown was a good thing.  I thought it would be good to take a look at some of the results of the shutdown, as detailed by the Congressional Research Service.
  • Health. New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance (information about the spread of diseases, such as AIDS and flu, were unavailable); hotline calls to NIH concerning diseases were not answered; and toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites stopped, resulting in 2,400 “Superfund” workers being sent home.
  • Law Enforcement/Public Safety. Delays occurred in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases was suspended; cancellation of the recruitment and testing of federal law-enforcement officials occurred, including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents; and delinquent child-support cases were suspended.
  • Parks/Museums/Monuments. Closure of 368 National Park Service sites (loss of 7 million visitors) occurred, with local communities near national parks losing an estimated $14.2 million per day in tourism revenues; and closure of national museums and monuments (estimated loss of 2 million visitors) occurred.
  • Visas/Passports. 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners for visas went unprocessed each day; 200,000 U.S. applications for passports went unprocessed; and U.S. tourist industries and airlines sustained millions of dollars in losses.
  • American Indian/Other Native Americans. All 13,500 Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees were furloughed; general assistance payments for basic needs to 53,000 BIA benefit recipients were delayed; and estimated 25,000 American Indians did not receive timely payment of oil and gas royalties.
  • American Veterans. Major curtailment in services, ranging from health and welfare to finance and travel was experienced.
  • Federal Contractors. Of $18 billion in Washington area contracts, $3.7 billion (over 20%) were managed by agencies affected by the funding lapse;10 the National Institute of Standards, was unable to issue a new standard for lights and lamps, scheduled to be effective January 1, 1996; and employees of federal contractors were furloughed without pay.
So let's see - the shutdown stopped aid to veterans, cut assistance for basic needs for Native Americans, and caused millions in losses to American industries. 

Last shutdown was caused because Newt Gingrich got upset because he had to sit at the back of Air Force One with Bob Dole.  Tom DeLay writes in his book No Retreat, No Surrender:
"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One... Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child. The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."
Now look at this new batch of Republicans coming in who want to shut down the government because they believe Obama wants them to "go to the back of the bus."

See the similarities?

6 comments:

  1. Well, Democrats overplayed their hand as a result of the 2008 election and if the Republicans are stupid enough to shut down the government, they will overplay their hand. What the lemmings do not realize is every time there is political turmoil, Rusty the Chickenhawk's ratings go up. So he tries to keep the turmoil going by refusing to compromise and the Republicans have to follow to the "T" everything he says or get teabagged.

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  2. The only thing I worry is that unlike in 1995, Republicans may be able to spin this better with Fox News. I agree with the idea of cutting the size of government and going through program after program trimming the fat but I disagree with how the Republican party seems to be going about it. They don't represent 100% of the nation so there needs to be some sort of compromise...

    By the way, I saw you got a lot of attention on Big Government recently!

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  3. You should have seen the comments on Big Peace. I simply pointed out Caroline Glick had stated in a previous article that none of Israel's neighbors recognized its right to exist. This is incorrect because Israel has signed a peace treaty with Jordan and Egypt. As a result they have full diplomatic relations with both countries. This fact is easily verified, but I was accused of lying, etc. Next time you will have to join in. They really are not much of a challenge. I am getting board except I enjoy pointing out the flaming comments I constantly receive.

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  4. I try to join in but sometimes I don't visit for a couple days and I'm too late on the conversation!

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  5. Kevin, it was early in the morning. Would you please change board to bored. Thank you. You need to go to Big Peace. There is an article on the Muslims and some of them are simply stating nuke them until they glow.

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  6. Spelling error forgiven! I don't have the power to change your comment but I understood where you were coming from. For some reason, when I'm tired I spell "subtle" as "suddle!"

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