Word: gingriched
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...years. Budget deficits became such a potent political issue that Bill Clinton was forced to abandon much of his economic agenda so he could push through a deficit-reduction plan in 1993. A year later, a pledge to cut spending and eliminate the deficit helped sweep Newt Gingrich's House Republicans into power for the first time in 50 years. The lesson: politicians who didn't pay homage to balanced budgets paid later, at the polls...
...credit Bush for a successful strategy, in particular for having learned from previous mistakes. When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used Republican control of Congress to assault regulations governing mining, oil drilling and air and water pollution in his 1994 Contract with America, the measures were quickly derailed in committee or vetoed by President Bill Clinton. "Gingrich thought he had a mandate to push antienvironmental measures, and he just put a huge bull's-eye on his back," says Scott Stoermer, communications director for the League of Conservation Voters...
...contrast, has learned to stand oblique to the current of public opinion on the environment, allowing criticism to slide off his back. His lieutenants in Interior, Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have quietly focused on the regulatory route, using administrative guidance and legal loopholes to achieve what Gingrich could not obtain in the full glare of the legislative process. "They are rejecting the full-frontal-assault approach that gets a lot of media attention in favor of death by a thousand strokes of the pen," contends Stoermer. The Republicans are also learning how to spin environmental issues...
...equal to the money set aside to help keep insects from crossing the border. Although last month HUD touted the $1.1 billion in the budget for homeless services as the largest amount of homeless assistance in history, it's about the same as the amount set aside before Newt Gingrich's Congress made major cuts. And the Administration, more quietly, also announced a 30% cut in operating funds for public housing last week...
...that the president has increased his hoard, the question becomes how skillfully Bush will manage his new stack of political assets: Will he over-read the results of the election in the manner of Bill Clinton in 1992 and Newt Gingrich in 1996? Or will he realize that the Democrats helped author their own demise and that being a good anti-terror president may not translate into support for his ideas on tax cuts or prescription drugs...