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====The Gingrich revolution====

====The Gingrich revolution====

:''Main articles: [[Republican Revolution (1994)]] and [[Contract with America]]''

:''Main articles: [[Republican Revolution (1994)]] and [[Contract with America]]''

House Republican Minority Whip [[Newt Gingrich]]-led the [[Republican Revolution (1994)|"Republican Revolution" of 1994]] and its famous ''Contract [[With America]]''. It was the first time since the 1952 elections that the Republicans secured control of both houses of Congress, which, with the brief exception of the Senate during 2001-2002, lasted until the 2006 mid-term elections.  Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for the forty years preceding 1994, with the exception of the 1981-1987 Congresses (in which Republicans controlled the Senate).  

House Republican Minority Whip [[Newt Gingrich]]-led the [[Republican Revolution (1994)|"Republican Revolution" of 1994]] and its famous ''[[Contract With America]]''. It was the first time since the 1952 elections that the Republicans secured control of both houses of Congress, which, with the brief exception of the Senate during 2001-2002, lasted until the 2006 mid-term elections.  Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for the forty years preceding 1994, with the exception of the 1981-1987 Congresses (in which Republicans controlled the Senate).  

In the 1994 mid-term election, Republican congressional candidates ran on a platform  of promising floor votes to force members of Congress to go on record on a series of popular reforms—something the Democrats had stifled for decades. These measures and others formed the Contract with America, which represented the first effort to have a party platform in a mid-term election. Seven of the ten Contract items actually became Law.  The budget reforms, coupled with reduced defense spending after the Cold War, and the earlier Reagan Tax Cuts for Business Research and Development in the 1980s, led to a high tech consumer boom, rising incomes for all groups, and unprecedented, sustained economic growth in the late 1990s. Democratic President Bill Clinton opposed some of the social agenda initiatives but he co-opted the proposals for welfare reform and a balanced federal budget. The result was a major change in the welfare system, which conservatives hailed and liberals bemoaned. One Contract item, which required Democrats in a two-thirds majority to pass a Constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, failed.  

In the 1994 mid-term election, Republican congressional candidates ran on a platform  of promising floor votes to force members of Congress to go on record on a series of popular reforms—something the Democrats had stifled for decades. These measures and others formed the Contract with America, which represented the first effort to have a party platform in a mid-term election. Seven of the ten Contract items actually became Law.  The budget reforms, coupled with reduced defense spending after the Cold War, and the earlier Reagan Tax Cuts for Business Research and Development in the 1980s, led to a high tech consumer boom, rising incomes for all groups, and unprecedented, sustained economic growth in the late 1990s. Democratic President Bill Clinton opposed some of the social agenda initiatives but he co-opted the proposals for welfare reform and a balanced federal budget. The result was a major change in the welfare system, which conservatives hailed and liberals bemoaned. One Contract item, which required Democrats in a two-thirds majority to pass a Constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, failed.