Tea Party Still Needed To Prevent GOP Lurch Toward Big Government

On Oct. 20, 1998, eager to avoid another government shutdown weeks before midterm elections, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich acceded to President Clinton's demands by pushing a 40-pound, 16-inch thick, 3,825-page, pork-laden spending bill through the Republican-controlled chamber.

At the time, the Associated Press reported, “Gingrich lectured his own party's conservatives, labeling them 'the perfectionist caucus' ” for demanding a tougher stand against Clinton.

It was four years earlier that Republicans had taken over control of Congress, storming into Washington on a pledge to shrink the size and scope of government. In the winter of 1995-96, the failure of Clinton and the Republican Congress to reach a budget agreement triggeredgovernment shutdowns.

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