It took three full weeks — 21 days — for President Bill Clinton and the Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to settle an impasse that partially
It took three full weeks — 21 days — for President Bill Clinton and the Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to settle an impasse that partially shut down the government in 1995-96.
That particular moment is a landmark in U. S. political history, birthing a new era of American gridlock that arguably led to the sharp partisanship that has gripped the nation — and delivered a new record for a partial government shutdown, marking day 22 on Saturday.
Shutdowns had been a rare thing in U. S. history. The first one came just over 40 years ago, 200 years after the country’s founding. But since that time, the fisticuffs of divided government and spending disputes have become fairly commonplace — if not usually this lengthy.
First shutdown was in 1976
The first partial shutdown came under President Gerald Ford in 1976 when he vetoed a spending bill amid a dispute over the budget for the Department of Health, Education & Welfare (a department that no longer exists in that form or under that name).
A whole slew of them followed over the next two decades. There were half a dozen during Jimmy Carter’s four years in office, and eight between 1981 and 1989 during Ronald Reagan’s administration.
But the finger-pointing then — and the rhetoric — can feel quite familiar to today. In 1984, President Reagan laid the blame on what he saw as intransigent House Democrats.
„This has been typical of what has been happening since we’ve been here,“ he said, „and you can lay this on the majority party in the House of Representatives.“
Early shutdowns had familiar rhetoric but unfamiliar priorities
There are some big differences between those early government shutdowns and what’s seen today.
„They tended to revolve around basically bargaining over routine government activities,“ said Duke University political scientist David Rohde.
There would be a budget negotiation and maybe a fight over some item large or small — perhaps funding for a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (1978), or the MX missile (1982).
The deadline would pass; the government would partially shut down; but the two sides would continue negotiating, confident that they’d find some quick compromise that would get everything up and operating again.
