A sanctimonious president refuses lawmakers the cuts they demand. The federalists in Congress grow cocky. They'd rather force a bond-market crisis than raise the debt ceiling or erode states' rights.
"I'm not worrying," the firebrand Virginian leading the opposition to the president says, and charts his own version of the budget. "I'm sticking to my guns. We've got a prairie fire started among the people in favor of cutting the budget."
The president disapproves. The Virginian seems downright gleeful. The debt-ceiling fight is giving new life to his already lengthy career.
This sounds like the story of the very Democratic President Barack Obama and the very Republican House Majority leader Eric Cantor battling in 2011. But it's actually a description of the very Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the very Democratic Finance Committee chairman, Harry F. Byrd, in 1957.
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