Tax Reform head Grover Norqust is encouraging the House GOP majority to pursue a government shutdown, a la 1995. | AP photo composite by POLITICO Another shutdown?

Grover Norquist wants a do-over.

The head of the influential Americans for Tax Reform is encouraging the new House Republican majority to adopt a take-no-prisoners approach to federal spending — and if that leads to a 1995-style government shutdown, so be it.


Midterm voters “were voting to stop the Obama spendathon, and that’s what people were sent to Washington to do,” Norquist said in an interview for POLITICO’s “Taxing America” video series.

“That’s what all the freshmen are going to do. That’s what the fight’s going to be about,” he said of the party’s majority-makers, who are spoiling for a showdown with President Barack Obama. The president “will be less popular if — in the service of overspending and wasting people’s money — he closes the government down, as opposed to now, when he’s just wasting people’s money.”

Watch the full interview

But veterans of that 1995 fight — and in particular incoming House Speaker John Boehner — are ambivalent about Norquist’s shut-it-down push. They saw what a setback the shutdown turned out to be for the party, and Boehner in particular doesn’t sound eager for the same thing to happen to his Republican caucus.

Norquist’s provocative comments, however, point up one problem Obama and Boehner have in common — how to confront the tea-party-fueled segment of the Republican Party in Congress that’s ready to push the government to the brink over cutting spending.

A confrontation could come earlier in the next Congress than most would expect. Treasury Department officials have said they will need Congress to raise the debt limit sometime in the first six months of next year. If Congress doesn't do that, it would result in a shuttering of federal offices since the government wouldn't have the authority to borrow money needed to cover the additional costs.

Boehner on Thursday, however, said he’s already warned his members that Congress will most likely have to raise the debt limit in coming months — a sign he’s not ready to see the lights go out around town.

“We’re going to have to deal with it as adults,” he told reporters. “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.”

Another scenario, more akin to the 1995 showdown, would come later in the year after House Republicans pass appropriations bills next fall for each department, or craft one omnibus budget bill for the government that could insist on across-the-board reductions in spending. If the White House refuses to accept those cuts and vetoes those spending bills, Congress and the administration could miss the deadlines for renewing funding for a host of programs and services that would be shut down until the disagreements were resolved.

But even as Boehner is sticking with a humble, postelection message, others in his caucus are gearing up to take on spending measures. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is pressing to insert language in every appropriations bill denying any use of money to implement or enforce the health care reform law. It’s a tactic that could lead to a string of presidential vetoes and departmental shutdowns.

In addition, King has made no secret of his worry that his own party will lose its nerve in such a fight. He’s called for a “blood oath” to be taken by all caucus members, including Boehner.

“I’ll be the first one to take it,” said King. “I’m afraid that holding our conviction together under the onslaught of the public pressure orchestrated by the White House would be significant.”

The 2011 Republican freshmen — and most of their veteran mentors — weren’t in town in 1995 when President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich engaged in a political game of chicken over spending cuts, including curbs on Medicare, which led to two partial government shutdowns.

Yet, they are arriving with the same sense of conviction, zeal and confidence that sent the historic 1994 class on a course of confrontation that had devastating results. In the aftermath, Gingrich’s approval ratings tanked, his party lost seats, and Clinton went on to win reelection in 1996.

It was a searing experience for all involved, and Boehner was one of them. He was a Gingrich loyalist, fourth in rank in the GOP leadership as Republican Conference chairman, and people close to him today say he has scant interest in reliving that fight.

“Our goal is to have a smaller, less costly and more accountable government here in Washington, D.C. Our goal is not to shut down the government,” Boehner said in September after Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) urged conservatives attending a Faith and Freedom Conference to stand by Republicans if a shutdown occurs.

Boehner, who declined to be interviewed for this article, also has drawn attention recently to legislation drafted by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the newly elected House Republican Conference chairman, that would essentially take off the table the risk of a government shutdown during a budget fight.

The Family Budget Protection Act would trigger an automatic continuing resolution at current spending levels if Congress and the White House fail to meet budget deadlines. The provision would keep government offices open while lawmakers and the administration continued negotiating — or fighting.

In addition to the shutdown provision, the budget-reform package would impose spending caps on Congress, require that every government program include an expiration date and provide the president with new authority that would operate essentially as a line-item veto.

“Hensarling has a bill that would prevent a government shutdown in the event of a budget standoff,” Boehner said last month. “We’re going to stay focused on doing what the American people want, and what they want is less spending.”

Even with Boehner’s backing, however, passage of Hensarling’s reform package is no sure thing. It was defeated by a Republican-controlled House in 2005. In addition, it would face an uphill fight in the Democratic-run Senate — a body that would be less hospitable to the spending caps and other provisions.

Boehner and Hensarling could try to move the shutdown provision independently, but that could meet resistance from the new conservative class — and its outside advocates, such as Norquist — who may want to retain a tactical pressure point in the event of a budget standoff.

But George Rasley, Hensarling’s spokesman, said that misreads history. “The spenders in the executive branch are always the ones who threaten to shut down the government. If you want to cut spending, you need to remove that threat.”

Norquist, however, is convinced Republicans could win the showdown this time around.

“There’s now a Fox television network. There’s now the Internet, in a way there wasn’t back then. So ... when Bill Clinton vetoed the budget and closed the government, saying the Republicans had closed the government, ... [that] is not something you could sell again,” Norquist told POLITICO.

He added: “If Obama can’t learn to be like Clinton and back off his agenda, which the American people rejected, then a clash is clarifying.”

Norquist also said Republicans have another advantage in today’s environment — a new leader.

“It was able to be sold the first time because everybody thought Gingrich was running the entire country because of the way the coverage [of him] had gone and because Gingrich acted as if he was running the country. Boehner’s not going to do that,” Norquist said.

In campaign appearances this year, Gingrich has raised the prospect of defunding portions of Obama’s agenda, most notably the health care reform law, but he hasn’t advocated a sequel to the 1995 battle that turned off the lights in downtown Washington offices as well as at national parks and veterans facilities.

Dick Armey, who served as majority leader in the 1995 Congress and now heads FreedomWorks, a group that has promoted tea party candidates and ideals, has also expressed ambivalence about prompting another shutdown, saying it is “premature” to even talk about it.

At a recent seminar for the incoming freshmen, Armey encouraged the new members to focus on policy and spending cuts first, rather than pick an unpredictable fight with the White House, said Adam Brandon, his spokesman. He also urged them to be sure to pocket big victories to offset a difficult vote, such as the debt ceiling vote.

In a 2006 interview with author Ryan Sager, Armey, who could not be reached for this article, offered insight into what he believed went wrong during the Gingrich-Clinton standoff — dynamics that may not have changed much since then.

“Newt’s position was, presidents get blamed for shutdowns, and he cited Ronald Reagan. I argued that it is counterintuitive to the average American to think that a Democrat wants to shut down the government. They’re the advocates of the government. It is perfectly logical to them that Republicans would shut it down because we’re seen as antithetical to government,” Armey said.