Republicans and Democrats who represented South Carolina in Congress during the nation’s last government shutdowns, during the 1990s, say the stakes this time are different and no clear resolution is in sight.
Perhaps ominously, their Palmetto State successors now in Congress agree.
The federal government entered a partial shutdown Tuesday when Congress failed to pass a spending plan. The shutdown has resulted in 800,000 federal workers being furloughed nationwide, including more than 10,000 in South Carolina. Other federal workers are being asked to work without pay.
Meanwhile, some federal services are being delayed and national parks closed.
Furloughed civilian defense employees received some good news this weekend.
Those whose jobs contribute to the “morale, well-being, capabilities and readiness of service members” will be able to return to work Monday thanks to Congress passing a bill authorizing pay through the shutdown, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Saturday.
The 1990s impasse, which led to two shutdowns of five and 21 days, was about the nation’s spending and debt. Ultimately, it yielded a compromise between the two parties and a balanced budget agreement, former U.S. House Budget Committee chairman John Spratt, D-York, who spent 28 years representing South Carolina’s 5th District, recalled last week. “Both sides learned something.”
This time, a contingent of Republicans want to dismantle the federal health-care law referred to as Obamacare. Meanwhile, Democrats, including President Barack Obama, refuse to yield.
Asked whether he foresees any solution to the impasse, assistant U.S. House Democratic leader Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said, “I have no idea. It is almost impossible for me to predict anything. ... Everything about this is so unreasonable and so irrational. It’s insanity.”
Republicans, who hold both of South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seats and six of its seven House seats, see the issue differently.
“Republicans are concerned about adding another trillion-dollar entitlement on top of arguably unsustainable (spending) levels,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, R-Charleston, who recently was elected to Congress again, after serving his first term during the 1990s shutdowns.