Posted on 02/13/2014 7:13:57 AM PST by Qbert
Texas firebrand spews out lukewarm senators in both parties
The debt ceiling fight in Congress has revived internal GOP tensions still lingering in the wake of last year’s government shutdown.
After the House of Representatives passed a “clean” debt-limit increase without any spending cuts attached, Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), whose 21-hour Obamacare filibuster preceded the government shutdown, announced that he would block any effort to pass the measure by simple majority vote in the Senate.
“If you ask anybody outside of Washington whether we should keep increasing the debt ceiling without fixing the underlying problem of out-of-control spending, the answer is ‘of course not,’” Cruz said in a statement. “If Republicans stand together we can demand meaningful spending restraint to help pull our nation back from the fiscal and economic cliff.”
Cruz’s Republican opponents saw the move as opportunism.
“Republicans don’t have any leverage after the shutdown, but this enables Cruz to take the spotlight again,” says a GOP aide. “It’s unfortunate.”
Some critics complain that Cruz’s gambit would force at least five Republican Senators to support a clean debt-limit increase – one that is going to pass anyway – which would open them up to attacks from Cruz’s political allies on the right. Cruz’s hardline stance precipitating the shutdown was, ironically enough, directly responsible for destroying GOP leverage on the debt limit, they argue.
Cruz aide Amanda Carpenter pushed back strongly against criticism of the Senator’s move. In a tweet early Wednesday, Carpenter described the GOP leadership’s debt-limit strategy: “Let Democrats walk all over them and thank them for the back massage.” Another conservative aide tells National Review Online: “It’s shocking to suggest that Republicans should not even attempt to offer the American people an alternative to putting the country deeper and deeper into debt.”
The conservative aide complained that GOP leadership was “abdicating” the minority’s right to offer amendments to the bill in order to speed its passage, and argued that a simple majority threshold would allow four red state Democrats such as Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.), and Mark Begich (Alaska) to cast votes against increasing the debt limit. “This is bad policy and absolutely terrible politics,” the aide says. “Conservatives are just dumbfounded at this ridiculous and unnecessary ploy.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has scheduled a pair of votes this afternoon on the debt-limit measure. One is a motion to invoke “cloture” and end debate on the bill – at a 60-vote threshold – and the other is on final passage by simple majority. Democrats seem confident they’ll get the GOP votes they need, but Republicans seem to be struggling to produce them. “There’s not a single Republican who wants to cast that vote,” the GOP aide says.
So far, only Senator Mark Kirk (R, Ill.) has said he’ll back the measure.
It is becoming quite apparent that Cruz doesn’t want to talk about changing Washington. He wants to change Washington.
As usual Cruz does the right thing.
just goes to show the lengths that the GOP leadership will go to in order to protect the floundering Mitch McConnell
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Its always about THEM, not us.
"Regarding the Cruz filibuster and government shutdown, hasn't Obama himself vindicated Cruz by his dictatorial delay mandates for his partisan namesake legislation, Obamacare."
Exactly. But unfortunately, it is no longer the goal of the GOP leadership to repeal Obamacare- the money bags that now dictate GOP policy have declared that the stated intention is to "pragmatically fix" Obamacare...
But in the end the RINOs DIDN’T “protect the floundering Mitch McConnell”!
They forced him to vote for cloture when Cruz interrupted the Kabuki show.
Susan Collins and friends are clearing the way for the first female Senate Majority Leader next year IMO.
So Cornyn voted with the dims.
All the while he is running ads in Texas claiming that he stands up to Obama everyday and he is one of us.
WSJ OpEd came out against Cruz today, but I’m glad he forced the issue. Make them own it.
I watched ‘Network’ the movie again last night. It’s worth watching again. You want to talk prophesy. I think it was made in the 70’s, and it is so in your face about what Hollywood is all about.
For the folks that work in entertainment, it had to be liberating to make that film, because in perpetuity they can point to it and say, “Look, we came out and told you with complete candor what we are about and you are still tuning in.”
The other striking aspect to it is the academic level of the vocabulary. Words like ‘oraculation’ are thrown around like you ought to know what they mean.
Refreshing, actually. The dialogue in the average film or movie is somewhere around the 5th grade level - today’s 5th grade level.
When I switched on the television this morning, it was either Bloomberg or CNBC (I think it was CNBC) which was interviewing a “Republican” about the vote.
The interviewee was spinning like a top. They actually panned to a photo of Cruz.
I switched the channel. Scr_w the GOP. Pardon my language, but to heck with them.
Stand firm Cruz. You are on the right side, and our country is imploding.
Cruz / Palin 2016
The Republicans were not hurt by the shutdown and they know it. The GOP Establishment just likes to use it as an excuse for why they refuse to resist Obama and the Globalist Agenda.
(1 Michigan Republican voted for 'clean' debt ceiling bill)
Who might that be?
In the long-run, the idea that a short-term Government shut-down must be avoided at any cost, is absolutely absurd! Contrast the class of Business pundits, who wrung their hands at the idea of Cruz being able to block the debt limit extension, with the leading figures in American business in 1776, such as John Hancock, or the great Southern Planters, who not only accepted a temporary, really severe interruption of business, but the very real threat of being personally hanged, for the clear eventual benefit of their posterity.
We need to stop being on the defensive in these discussions. We need to take the fight to the compulsion driven neurotics who are betraying the American heritage, at every opportunity.
Sort out your priorities and standup to the hand-wringers, whose moral cowardice is destroying our children's future.
William Flax
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