Posted on 03/24/2016 6:26:07 AM PDT by Shery
America needs a leader who will stand for what is right, even if he’s the only one standing. The following is a summary of a particular fight between the Senate leadership and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, taken from Cruz’s book, “A Time For Truth.”
At a usually jocular Senate Republican lunch in February of 2014, Senators were turning purple and yelling at Ted Cruz and Mike Lee for refusing to go along with a scheme to raise the debt ceiling.
Under Boehner’s leadership, 28 Republicans had joined with 193 Democrats to cut the legs out from under the 199 Republican House members conspiring to raise the debt ceiling with zero reform amendments, as per President Obama’s wishes. The bill was now in the Senate, and Senate leadership had a plan to raise the debt ceiling by changing the rules through unanimous consent to allow for a simple majority to pass the legislation. That way, Republicans who were in favor of raising the ceiling would not have the vote on their records.
Mitch McConnell, then-Senate Minority Leader, had said on Fox News Sunday:
I think for the president to ask for a clean debt ceiling, when we have a debt the size of our economy, is irresponsible. So we ought to discuss adding something to his request to raise the debt ceiling that does something about the debt, or produces at least something positive for our country. So Cruz noted that the rules were on the side of McConnell’s argument, that in order to increase the debt ceiling, 60 senators must vote for it. At the time, the Senate had a Democrat majority of 55. So five Republicans would have to vote for the increase. But the Republican leadership asked the Republicans at the lunch to join with the Democrats in a unanimous consent vote to lower the threshold to a simple majority; Cruz and then Lee objected, and the yelling reached a fevered pitch.
Ted raised his hand and said, “There is no universe in which I can consent to that.”
The thinking on the part of Leadership was that the Democrats could raise the debt ceiling, and Republicans would have no fingerprints on it. Americans would fault the Democrats for increasing the debt, and Republicans would seem to be hapless bystanders to the treachery of the Democrats. But Cruz wouldn't go along and he exposed their little scheme of indirectly raising the debt, and never battling the Democrats.
Ted raised his hand and said, “There is no universe in which I can consent to that.” He went on: “If I were to affirmatively consent to make it easier for Harry Reid to add trillions in debt with no spending reforms whatsoever, I think it would be dishonest, and unfaithful to the voters who elected me.”
Cruz numbered off the arguments coming from his fellow Republican senators at the lunch: “That’s what you say to the folks back home, you don’t actually do it! ”“Don’t you understand what we are doing?” “Why are you forcing us to tackle this?” “Why can’t you just go along?”
In his book, the Texas Senator noted:
It was surreal to see Republican Senators, some of whom were conservative icons, turn purple over this issue. The fulminations went on and on against me and my crazy idea that senators ought to vote yes on what they support, and no on what they oppose. In keeping with the rhetoric of Senate Minority Leader McConnell on Fox News Sunday mentioned earlier, Cruz tried to convince his fellow Republicans that they could force the Democrats to compromise if they all stood together. In a closed door conference, Cruz offered some legislative attachments to the debt ceiling. One of these offers was to prevent the federal government from bailing out insurance companies under Obamacare. This item was strategically and politically brilliant, because Democrats wouldn’t want to defend insurance company bailouts in an election year. Cruz also suggested entitlement reform legislation, and Senator Toomey’s “Default Prevention Act,” which would take away the lie Obama and the Democrats kept feeding the public about how not raising the debt ceiling meant that we would default on our payments as a nation. That Act would expose the lie that Obama used for fear mongering.
On the first vote, there were 59 ayes, since Cruz and Lee refused to allow the unanimous consent to lower the vote threshold. To show how fearful the Republican senators were about not being held accountable by the people on their vote to raise the debt ceiling, the clerk was told not to announce the votes, as was customary—another glimpse into the deal-making between Reid and McConnell. That way, the four Republican senators who voted in favor could secretly switch their votes. Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Whip John Cornyn led the vote to cut off debate.
The Hill reported it this way:
McConnell and top lieutenant Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) reluctantly backed ending debate after it became clear that no one in their conference wanted to cast the deciding 60th vote… In the end, 12 Republicans voted to end debate in the 67-31 vote. That vote guaranteed that there would be no leveraged spending reforms, and at the same time allowed for a simple majority to raise the debt ceiling.
The Republican leadership bent over backwards to give Obama another debt ceiling raise with zero attachments to fiscal sanity.
Cruz stood up, and spoke for 80% of the nation, fighting against more and more debt. Unfortunately, after giving the Senate to the Republicans, they still continued to give the Democrats everything they want.
This incident is one of the reasons that D.C. hates Ted Cruz, and why the nation should be thankful he and Mike Lee fought and will continue to fight Washington D.C. to return the power of government back to the consent of the people.
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/03/cruzs-exposure-of-republican-leaderships-quiet-surrender#sthash.0W8kjxGV.dpuf
Oh wow, so very principleTED of him to not apologize to Mitch...
...
...yet.
Ted Cruz will use a few hundreds some poor widow mailed him to light a cigar with Jeb Bush and bide his time.
Here come the CDS brigades.
Sorry, didn’t mean to be “low info” and “deranged” for noticing that Ted stands up and talks a lot, but when it comes to the votes, he caves and gives the left what they want.
I do suffer from a syndrome. Acute Globalist Bulls**t allergies.
It’s obvious that with the Kool-Aid swilling and Trumpopium, the hardline Trumpophiles can’t distinguish the good from the grotesque.
That’s exactly the kind of gutsy leadership that made me lean toward Ted Cruz at the beginning of this campaign season.
However, when Ted Cruz has obviously joined with these same disgusting GOP establishment Senators to gang up on Trump instead of joining Trump to gang up on the Establishment, that’s when he lost me. The lure of the Presidency apparently was too much of a temptation. I am so disappointed.
Given the choice between voting for a conservative who joins with the establishment, and a less than conservative who opposes the establishment, I would vote for Trump. We have been sold out by too many “conservative” types to fall for that again. Including George W. who at the time seemed like the most conservative guy running!
Cruz!
he caves and gives the left what they want.
....so you just confirmed that you are a basement tRumery Troll who didn’t read a word of the article, or you’re to dense to put 2+2 together... I see. all hail the Donaldo in every and all things. Way to lower the level of discourse on FR. Disgraceful, just like most of the orangeman’s tweets...
ymmv
Yes, I am a troll, an idiot, and I’m lowering the discourse. Thank you for elevating the discourse on behalf of Teb! Bush.
Which of your brain cells thought that one up?
Good for you. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.
Since your logic is that Cruz is a Rino due to a Bush endorsement, I can expect the acknowledgement from you that Trump is a racist due to the Klan endorsement? Both scenarios are idiotic and highlight a lack of critical thinking on your part.
Trump has repeatedly disavowed his terrible “endorsements”, including David Duke.
Cruz thanks the Bush clan for their support and hires them onto his campaign.
An endorsement? No, the Bush team is part of the Cruz campaign. They’re running the whole damn show for Ted. Why is the obvious so hard for some people to see. The Bush family owns Ted Cruz!
Reminds me of the Movie “Gone in Sixty Seconds” which is about how long it took Lyin Ted to go from severely conservative to full on GOPe.
Bunk. Did you forget that this IS about winning the White House?
Only the uninformed would believe you can win the Presidential nomination with only "rebels" in your camp. If the "establishment" ran to Trump with open arms, Trump would scoop them up in a New York minute, because he wants to WIN.
Trump's fake "lying" meme destroyed any chances of Cruz and Trump joining forces because Trump wasn't smart enough to understand he would need Cruz by the end of the primary season.
Fighting about "policy" disagreements is always acceptable and leaves the "dropped out" candidate a pathway to support the winner.
When you go "slash and burn" with personal attacks....you are only "frying" your future chances, which is why Trump hasn't been able to lock in his nomination by now.
In a nutshell this is what's wrong with Cruz. He talks a good game but in the end everything stays the same. There's something about his personality and style that prevents him from really building a coalition for conservative ideas. Because of this the GOP keeps him around because it keeps people voting for the GOP on the premise that a token conservative or two can't hurt.
Contrast that with Trump. He has the personality and the skills really needed to institute true conservative change. He's campaigning on conservative issues...that's what he's promising and he has the skills to actually get them implemented.
The Bush family that said “I don’t like that guy”? Or the one that called him an ass? Nice try.
You mean when Donald Trump flat out lied and said he didn’t know who David Duke was?
What I find so funny is that there is a group who believe that Cruz has capitulated to the GOPe. From what I see, it is the GOPe that has finally resigned itself to supporting Cruz. YMMV. Peace.
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