[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 2, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6118]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HISTORY IS MUCH DIFFERENT

  (Mr. LABRADOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Speaker, over the last few days we keep hearing 
about how Republicans are terrorists, Republicans have guns to 
everybody's head. And it's been, actually, really sad to hear the other 
side talk about these things.
  At this point in Ronald Reagan's second term, for example, the 
government had already shut down the government six times, according to 
The Washington Post and according to many other articles. And this 
happened under the leadership of Democratic leader Tip O'Neill, 
precisely the opposite of the political dynamic that exists today.
  Former O'Neill staffer and MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews has written an 
entire book extolling the era as a time when politics actually worked. 
You can probably guess how he feels today about this.
  But the problem is that, during Tip O'Neill's career, there were 
seven different shutdowns with the Democrats. The final shutdown of 
O'Neill's career, according to Andrew Stiles of the National Review, 
happened in October of 1986. House Democrats had picked a fight with 
Reagan on a number of issues, including labor, energy, and welfare 
policy.
  Today, Democrats insist that this has never happened in history, and 
the reality is that the history is much different.

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