Government Shut down?

So something interesting I learned while working at the WH, is how Monica L and President Bill C became "friends". In 1995 the "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. Thus the Federal government of the United States 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. At the time Monica L was a WH Intern, since as a WH Intern you are not paid, all Interns were required to work to pick up the slack of the people who were suspended. A government shut down is about to happen yet again, and we are seeing the exact same issue/problems as before.

A little background: When the previous fiscal year ended September 30,1995 the president and the Republican-controlled Congress hadn't passed a budget. A majority of Congress members wanted additional cuts in education, environmental controls, and the Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC, as well as limiting the growth of Medicare. Their differences resulted from differing estimates of economic growth, medical inflation, and anticipated revenues. To keep the government running in times of deficit, it is necessary to periodically increase the limit of debt that the Treasury Department is authorized to accrue. In response to Clinton's unwillingness to make the budget cuts that the Republicans wanted, Newt Gingrich threatened to refuse to raise the debt limit, putting the country in default. Since Gingrich expected Clinton to fold, the result was a game of chicken between the two. Economically, the result would be a shaking of investor confidence and higher interest rates, which would increase the cost of borrowing money.Since a new budget had not been approved, October 1 started with the entire federal government running on continuing resolution to authorize funding for departments until new budgets are approved. The existing continuing resolution was set to expire on November 13 at midnight, at which point non-essential government services would be forced to be shut down in order to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt. Congress made many attempts to pass cuts, which Clinton denounced as "backdoor efforts". On November 13, major players on both sides, including Vice President Al Gore, Dick Armey, and Bob Dole, met once more to try resolving the budget. This shut the government down not once but twice, ending the game of chicken on January 6th 1996.

I hope this does not happen yet again, I'm confident that the Current Administration and the Current House can reach a resolution by no other than my birthday March 4. Honestly, they need to quite blaming the other party and figure out a resolution to the budget.

What do you think? Should we shut down the government untill we can come to a resolution?

Lu y

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Armey replied gruffly that if I didn't give in to them, they would shut the government down and my presidency would be over. I shot back, saying I would never allow their budget to become law, "even if I drop to 5 percent in the polls. If you want your budget, you'll have to get someone else to sit in this chair!" Not surprisingly, we didn't make a deal.