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
Whatever pal. Keep telling yourself the Bush family has nothing to do with Ted Cruz. The reality is gonna hit you hard.
“which is why Trump hasn’t been able to lock in his nomination by now. “
Do you think Cruz will drop out when he can’t mathematically make the 1237? Kasich hasn’t. There is a reason for that and it has nothing to do with Trump.
And you keep telling yourself whatever it is you tell yourself, sport.
Fair enough.
The Rafael booty-lickers already beat us to it.
I liked this even better than the Obamacare filibuster.
I know Kasich says he wants to go to convention as either a power broker or chosen nominee.
Cruz says he can make the 1237. I don't know if he can or not.
I know that in 2012, Rick Santorum didn't get out until April, Newt Gingrich was still in during early May and I don't know if Ron Paul ever suspended his campaign...because I remember some kind of "uproar" at the Convention concerning Paul.
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