National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who's normally a Big Government Neo-Con, must have been breathing fire when she blogged this tidbit on NR's server -- a report that was initially posted on the Congressional Quarterly's website:
Republicans are uttering a word that for 12 years has been utterly unspeakable.
Shutdown.
It’s a word that can send shudders through those who saw the last one — actually, two — play out after Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. The Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton standoff was so traumatic that since then, neither party has ventured anywhere in that direction.
This year’s appropriations tug-of-war between a new majority in Congress and a president of the opposing party does not appear to be headed for a government shutdown, but a rhetorical taboo was lifted when the word became part of the partisan message of the moment.
“The obvious plan of the Democrats is to not do appropriations bills but put everything together in a giant omnibus appropriations bill in a kind of legislative blackmail with all of the policy and increased spending, to in effect threaten the president to either sign the bill or be accused of shutting down the government,” Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference, said Wednesday.
President Bush has threatened to veto seven appropriations bills because together they would exceed his discretionary spending limit by more than $20 billion.
Congressional veterans are certain the two sides are headed for a whopper of a fight over a catchall, omnibus appropriations bill.
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