The president and the newly-resurgent congressional Republicans at an impasse. Republicans put a bill on the table which was unacceptable to the White House, because of ideological "riders" added. The debt ceiling has to be raised. Republicans talk of reducing the size of government and deficit slashing. The president says they just want to make deep cuts in Medicare. The government shut itself down.

Does any of this sound familiar? These aren't today's headlines, they are from 1995, when President Bill Clinton and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich were toe-to-toe. The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.

I was curious what the media said during the last government shutdown, so I dug out a few stories I'm going to excerpt today, as well as the speech Clinton gave explaining the shutdown to the nation. The news articles were from a paywall site, so I do not have links to them, but the speech is posted on CNN's site.

I thought it'd be interesting to take a look backwards today, as we all sit around waiting for the current impasse to come to a boil. What struck me about these bits of history was how easily they could have been written this week -- with only minor changes to the text, both sides are pretty close to where Newt and Bill were back then. The similarities are kind of eerie, actually.

-- Chris Weigant

The New York Times
Battle Over The Budget: The Overview; President Vetoes Stopgap Budget; Shutdown Looms
November 14, 1995

President Clinton on Monday vetoed two bills intended to keep the Government in business as he and Republican leaders exchanged accusations of partisan irresponsibility and much of the Government prepared to shut down later today.

A last-ditch effort to reach agreement ended shortly before midnight without any progress between Mr. Clinton and Republican leaders. While Bob Dole of Kansas, the Senate majority leader, called the 90-minute session "constructive," he said, "We went around and around, but we don't have an agreement." Senator Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, was even more emphatic, saying, "No progress was made."

While other Republicans will meet with Administration officials later today, the failure to agree meant that about 800,000 Federal workers will be furloughed after reporting to work this morning.

Shortly before the meeting began at 10 P.M. Monday, Mr. Clinton vetoed a two-week extension of spending authority for the Federal Government, complaining of its reductions in spending: "We don't need these cuts to balance the budget. And we do not need big cuts in education and the environment to balance the budget."

On Monday morning, President Clinton vetoed a four-week extension of the Government's authority to borrow money. He asserted that provisions attached to it would set back three decades of environmental and public health protection as part "of an overall back-door effort by the Congressional Republicans to impose their priorities on our nation." He said they should "drop their extreme proposals." Later, he said the Republican budget "violates our values."

Speaker Newt Gingrich replied by saying, "We were elected to change politics as usual." He continued, "We were elected to get rid of all the phony promises and the phony excuses and to be honest with the American people." He attacked the Administration for "harsh rhetoric," contending that "they say that wanting to balance the budget is the act of a terrorist" and that "it's extremist to want honesty in the welfare rolls." He said Mr. Clinton had vetoed the bill "so they can play political games."

. . .

The Republicans showed some concern over a provision of the spending bill that would raise Medicare charges, an issue Democrats have hammered in recent days. And after the White House meeting, Mr. Daschle said proudly: "The President stood firm on Medicare. As long as Medicare is on the table, there is no deal."

. . .

The political stakes are huge. The intensity of the name-calling and the partisan gamesmanship displayed on all sides reflected a shared sense that today's issues are a prelude to a much bigger battle that will be fought when the Republicans manage to send their budget-balancing legislation to the White House. That bill, which both sides label revolutionary, would dramatically scale back the role of the Federal Government in American life, and each side sees firmness now as required for credibility then.

However that clash comes out, the whole issue of budget-balancing will almost surely weigh heavily in next year's Presidential campaign.

Each camp contended on Monday that it was fighting for great purposes. Mr. Clinton told the Democratic Leadership Council that the Republican effort to clutter the debt limit with other provisions -- legislation that would curtail Federal authority to issue environmental, health and safety regulations, that would commit the Government to a balanced budget in seven years and that would limit the way the Treasury could shuffle Government obligations -- contradicted "the wisdom of the Founding Fathers" and owed more to "pressure than constitutional practice."

At a news conference on Monday night, Mr. Gingrich said, "What the Clinton Administration really objects to is that we are committed to a balanced budget that controls spending instead of raising taxes, that we are committed to shrinking the size of the Washington bureaucracy."

Each camp said it would be the other side's fault if the Government shut down its nonessential functions today, which would be the fifth time in 15 years. Previous closings have never lasted more than four days. But with each side feeling that it has the political high ground and that the other side will be blamed, this shutdown could last for some time, perhaps until polls settle the argument. Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House minority leader, said after the night meeting: 'This could last for a while. It may not be resolved for a number of days and maybe beyond that."

. . .

But neither side wanted to be accused of shutting the door on either Government offices or the possibility of compromise. At the meeting with President Clinton on Monday night were Republican leaders, including Senator Dole, Speaker Gingrich of Georgia, and Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader. The two Democratic Congressional leaders attending were Mr. Daschle and Mr. Gephardt.

Mr. Gingrich had said late Monday afternoon that he doubted that either side would gain in public esteem from a shutdown. "I think they'll blame all of us," he said. "I think the American people expect us to be able to act like adults, to get in a room and talk in a civil manner and to get something accomplished."

. . .

The debt extension bill Mr. Clinton vetoed Monday morning would have raised the legal limit on the national debt, now $4.9 trillion, to $4.967 trillion through Dec. 12. Then the limit would have dropped back to $4.8 trillion.

That final provision, Mr. Clinton said in his veto message, "obligates the Government, Congress and the President to pass the Republican Congressional budget plan with its huge cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, education and technology, the environment, and its tax increases on working families."

The Washington Post
Federal Agencies Prepare for Shutdown; Negotiations on Budget Resume After 2 Vetoes
November 14, 1995

President Clinton last night vetoed legislation that would have averted a shutdown of the government today. A last-minute attempt at compromise between the White House and Republican congressional leaders ended without agreement just before midnight.

Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) said, "We don't have an agreement," but said that White House and GOP budget leaders will meet again today to continue negotiations. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said that all sides in the nearly two-hour meeting laid out "in a candid way" compromises each felt the other must make, and that the talks were productive enough to continue today.

In vetoing the temporary spending legislation offered by Republicans to keep the government operating another 18 days, Clinton had said it "would raise Medicare premiums on senior citizens and deeply cut education and environmental programs."

Following the late-night meeting, Gingrich said that he had offered a proposal to pass a spending bill stripped of Medicare provisions and more in line with Clinton's spending requirements, in exchange for a White House commitment to reaching a balanced budget in seven years using congressional figures as a benchmark. He said Clinton did not reject that out of hand and that it led to "a further discussion on various ways to get to a balanced budget."

Democratic leaders who attended the meeting offered a much more pessimistic assessment of the possibilities for compromise. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said there had been "no progress at all" and there was "no real possibility" of getting an acceptable short-term spending bill that would avoid or limit a government shutdown.

Congress failed to pass all 13 annual spending bills by Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, and an interim spending measure expired last night at midnight. The GOP-proposed measure Clinton rejected last night would have extended spending authority until Dec. 1.

. . .

The budget battle between Congress and the White House played out like a day-long moving picture of charges, countercharges, back-channel negotiations and high tensions among House and Senate Republicans before the president and GOP and Democratic leaders finally sat down at the White House to negotiate.

Earlier yesterday Clinton vetoed a separate bill that would have temporarily raised the federal debt ceiling until Dec. 13 to avert a possible government default.

The debt ceiling bill arrived at the White House Sunday and there was virtually no doubt that Clinton would veto it. At the Treasury Department, Secretary Robert E. Rubin announced a series of maneuvers that officials say will avert a default on government loans. And while the president and Republicans continued to bitterly blame one another, a new poll shows that Americans blame Republicans more than the president for the crisis.

There was one glimmer of hope yesterday over the short-term spending bill when Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) offered, in conversation with White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta, to freeze Medicare premiums.

The move would have kept Part B premiums, which cover doctor bills, at the current $46.10 per month rate. The legislation Clinton vetoed last night called for raising the premium to $53.50 on Jan. 1. With no congressional action, rates would drop to $42.50 per month.

Domenici's eleventh-hour Medicare compromise proposal seemed to catch Gingrich, House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) and other House GOP leaders by surprise and sparked bitter complaints from some that Domenici was undermining their bargaining position with the White House.

The proposal would have been difficult, if not impossible, for Gingrich to sell to House freshmen and other conservatives after they were forced to make a number of concessions on the spending legislation, or continuing resolution, and on the debt ceiling legislation last week. Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee with chief jurisdiction over Medicare, said the plan "makes no sense from a policy point of view."

. . .

While the efforts to find a way out of the shutdown went on late into the night, both sides continued their message drumbeat for public consumption: Clinton maintained he was protecting Medicare and fighting for a budget that reflected the nation's "values," while Republicans maintained Clinton talked the talk of a balanced budget but won't lead in finding a real route to one and won't sign into law any of the steps needed to get there.

At first blush, Clinton's message -- not the GOP one -- was the one coming through to the American public and accounts at least in part for Republican second thoughts about their Medicare proposals.

A new Washington Post-ABC News survey completed last night found that more Americans blamed the Republicans in Congress than Clinton for the budget impasse. According to the poll, 46 percent of those interviewed faulted congressional Republicans for the budget stalemate, while 27 percent blamed the president. One in five said Clinton and congressional Republicans were equally at fault.

The poll of 1,005 adults, conducted Friday through yesterday, also found that 54 percent said they agreed with Clinton that the GOP budget proposal "makes too many cuts in domestic programs and gives tax breaks to the wealthy." Nearly a third, 32 percent, said they favored the GOP plan to balance the budget in seven years and cut taxes for most Americans, while the remainder were undecided. Overall, more than one-half, 53 percent, said that Clinton's position on the budget was closer to their own, while 37 percent sided with the GOP.

In a rousing address to the Democratic Leadership Council, Clinton adopted Churchillian cadences to say of the Republican budget strategy: "I will fight it. I am fighting it today. I will fight it tomorrow. I will fight it next week and I will fight it next month. I will fight it until we get a budget that is fair to all Americans."

After White House press secretary Michael McCurry announced at midday that Clinton would veto the spending bill even if the Medicare provision were removed, Republicans concluded that Clinton's opposition to the Medicare language was a smokescreen.

Republicans, who had been squabbling among themselves over whether any compromise should be offered, quickly dropped the Medicare overture, passed their version of the spending bill and began another round of maneuvering late into the night.

"It must look like a spectacle to the average American," said Gingrich.

Clinton Speech On Government Shutdown
November 14, 1995

Good afternoon. Today, as of noon, almost half of the federal government employees are idle. The government is partially shutting down because Congress has failed to pass the straightforward legislation necessary to keep the government running without imposing sharp hikes in Medicare premiums and deep cuts in education and the environment.

It is particularly unfortunate that the Republican Congress has brought us to this juncture because, after all, we share a central goal -- balancing the federal budget. We must lift the burden of debt that threatens the future of our children and grandchildren, and we must free-up money so that the private sector can invest, create jobs, and our economy can continue its healthy growth.

Since I took office, we have cut the federal deficit nearly in half. It is important that the people of the United States know that the United States now has proportionately the lowest government budget deficit of any large industrial nation. We have eliminated 200,000 positions from the federal bureaucracy since I took office. Our federal government is now the smallest percentage of the civilian work force it has been since 1933, before the New Deal. We have made enormous progress, and now we must finish the job.

Let me be clear -- we must balance the budget. I proposed to Congress a balanced budget, but Congress refused to enact it. Congress has even refused to give me the line-item veto to help me achieve further deficit reduction. But we must balance this budget without resorting to their priorities, without their unwise cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, in education and the environment.

Five months ago I proposed my balanced budget plan. It balances the budget in the right way. It cuts hundreds of wasteful and outdated programs, but it upholds our fundamental values -- to provide opportunity, to respect our obligations to our parents and our children, to strengthen families and to strengthen America -- because it preserves Medicare and Medicaid, it invests in education and technology, it protects the environment, and it gives the tax cuts to working families for child rearing and for education. Unfortunately, Republican leaders in Washington have put ideology ahead of common sense and shared values in their pursuit of a budget plan.

We can balance the budget without doing what they seek to do. We can balance the budget without the deep cuts in education, without the deep cuts in the environment, without letting Medicare wither on the vine, without imposing tax increases on the hardest-pressed working families in America. I am fighting for a balanced budget that is good for America and consistent with our values. If they'll give me the tools, I'll balance the budget.

I vetoed the spending bill sent to me by Congress last night because America can never accept under pressure what it would not accept in free and open debate. I strongly believe their budget plan is bad for America. I believe it will undermine opportunity, make it harder for families to do the work that they have to do, weaken our obligations to our parents and our children, and make our country more divided. So I will continue to fight for the right kind of balanced budget.

Remember, the Republicans are following a very explicit strategy announced last April by Speaker Gingrich, to use the threat of a government shutdown to force America to accept their cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, to accept their cuts in education and technology and the environment.

Yesterday they sent me legislation that said -- we will only keep the government going, and we will only let it pay its debts if and only if we accept their cuts in Medicare, their cuts in education, their cuts in the environment, and their repeal of 25 years of bipartisan commitments to protect the environment and public health.

On behalf of the American people, I said no. If America has to close down access to education, to a clean environment, to affordable health care, to keep our government open, then the price is too high.

My message to Congress is simple -- you say you want to balance the budget, so let's say yes to balancing the budget, but let us together say no to these deep and unwise cuts in education, technology, the environment, Medicare and Medicaid. Let's say no to raising taxes on the hardest- pressed working families in America. These things are not necessary to balancing the budget. Yes to balancing the budget, no to the cuts.

I know the loss of government service will cause disruption in the lives of millions of Americans. We will do our very best to minimize this hardship. But there is, after all, a simple solution to the problem. All Congress has to do is to pass a straightforward bill to let government perform its duties and pay its debts. Then we can get back to work and resolve our differences over the budget in an open, honest, and straightforward manner.

Before I conclude, I'd like to say a word to the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who will be affected by this partial shutdown.

I know, as your fellow citizens know, that the people who are affected by this shutdown are public servants. They're the people who process our Social Security applications, help our veterans apply for benefits, care for the national parks that are our natural heritage. They conduct the medical research that saves people's lives. They are important to America, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I will do everything I can to see that they receive back pay and that their families do not suffer because of this.

But it is my solemn responsibility to stand against a budget plan that is bad for America and to stand up for a balanced budget that is good for America. And that is exactly what I intend to do.

Thank you very much.

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant