310 a short history of the united states
now ruled the lower chamber after forty years in the wilderness, and
they also won control of the Senate, 53 to 47 , which they had not done
since 1986. Furthermore, they picked up a dozen new governorships.
Most of the items listed in the “Contract with America” were passed
in the House of Representatives, except the one calling for a constitu-
tional amendment to limit members’ terms to twelve years, and a mis-
sile defense system in space. But few got past the Senate. Gingrich was
particularly anxious to obtain a balanced budget. He would have pre-
ferred a constitutional amendment, but failing that objective he warned
the administration that a balance between income and expenditures had
to be reached by 2002. The House Bud get Committee reported out a
bill that trimmed $ 1 trillion in spending cuts over the next seven years.
Hundreds of programs and several cabinet departments (Education
and Commerce and Energy) were eliminated in this proposal. Leon
Panetta, a California Democrat, accused Gingrich of attempting to
hold a gun to President Clinton’s head by threatening to “shut down
the government” if the Republicans “did not get their tax cuts to help
the rich and cut spending that would help the young, the old, the poor
and the needy.” Clinton encouraged Democrats in the House to lam-
baste the Republicans for their efforts to slash the budget that helped
those dependent on the government’s social programs. And whereas the
GOP appeared rigid and unreasonable about fiscal matters, the Presi-
dent seemed more open to compromise as he slowly nudged his party
away from its extreme liberalism to a more moderate centrist position.
He even agreed to a welfare reform bill that, among other things, cut
welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to fi nd work.
Later Clinton would say that “the era of big government is over.”
When Clinton vetoed a stopgap spending bill, funding for most
government offices ran out on November 13 , 1995. As a result almost
800 , 000 federal employees were ordered home. Vital services like law
enforcement remained operative, but a wide range of government
operations—from tourist attractions like the National Gallery of Art
in Washington and the Yosemite, Yellowstone, Smoky Mountains, and
Grand Canyon national parks to the pro cessing of Social Security
applications—were shut down. If, said Gingrich, the only way we
could demonstrate “that we were really going to balance the budget”
was by closing the government, then so be it. Otherwise, “you never