Posted on 10/16/2013 9:58:14 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Sens. Cruz, Lee say they won't block deal By Mike Lillis - 10/16/13 12:38 PM ET
Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee said Wednesday that they won't try to block the bipartisan deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
"The timing of the vote will make no difference to the outcome," Cruz (R-Texas) said. "I have no intention of delaying the vote."
Cruz and Lee (R-Utah) had spearheaded the campaign to attach ObamaCare language to any new budget bills, and had pushed their colleagues to take a hard-line stance.
But the pair emerged from a meeting of Senate Republicans Wednesday afternoon to say they would let the agreement — which contains only one provision on ObamaCare — move forward.
"Some of us want to see it first — we still don't have text," Lee said. "But provided we get the text and have time t review it and everything, I suspect we'll collapse the time."
There has been speculation that the bipartisan deal might originate in the House, thereby eliminating some procedural hurdles when the bill moved to the Senate. But with Cruz and Lee withdrawing their filibuster threats, several GOP senators said the upper chamber will likely act first on the agreement.
The deal reached by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt-ceiling until February. It would require income verification for subsidies under ObamaCare, but otherwise leave the helathcare law untouched.
The weeks-long fight over ObamaCare has left the GOP sharply divided and licking its wounds, after centrist Republicans warned for weeks that the battle was futile and damaging to the party.
Several Republicans left the meeting Wednesday grumbling that the conservatives in their ranks had prolonged the impasse even as Republicans were sinking in the polls.
"We left a lot on the table because we couldn't get our act together, but this is the best Mitch could do," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who will vote for the deal. "We need to stop the bleeding, lessen the damage to the party."
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) echoed that message.
"I hope it is another 15 years at least before we have to go through this exercise again," McCain said. "We're in a hole, we have to dig out and come up with a positive agenda."
It looks to me like Cruz did the right thing, or at least the closest approximation to the right thing that was realistic under current conditions.
That's good. As more and more people get forced to pay the Obamacare taxes, we may still win this thing.
Boiling frogs in pots only works if the water is heated slowly. I still think the rapid rise to a full boil which Obamacare taxes represent is likely to generate a major explosion as people realize they are being forced to pay a huge tax increase for an insurance product many don't want, and many others will find seriously problematic.
48 posted on 10/16/2013 12:16:51 PM by Lazamataz: “And yet ANOTHER person sees RightwardHo as the troll he is. Waiting for the moderators to catch up.”
Laz, I understand your point about RightwardHo. Certainly it's true that we have lots of fake conservatives on Free Republic.
However, this data from his page should be checkable. “Retired State Prosecutor of 25 years (Fairfax County, VA). Law School, UVA. Married 46 years. Eight kids, 15 grand-kids. Born in Providence, RI. Retired to Pasadena, CA.”
Not everybody with wrong views is fake. Some are just plain wrong.
Oh please.
They announced every single one of these bloated tax paid government employees will be paid every penny they didn’t earn while sitting at home watching movies..
Try that in the real world
Old news. GOP house passed that bill Saturday the 5th. I ranted endlessly about it then. Not one house member voted against it.
Got lectured by a cheerleading team here that that House bill was a brilliant move to beat Obama at this.
I pointed out that it was a clear signal they (GOP) thinks they were losing. And obviously they did, but it was a bad sign at the time.
The purpose was to try to keep those Gss from all being Dem.
that was already on my posted list of the comment you replied to #1 ref #258
Hard to blame RINOs/GOPe alone for that, they all went for it.
LOL — thank you for the laugh.
You’re supposed to be little less obvious Troll.
chopperjc got the zot yesterday.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3079925/posts?page=163#163
Good. One down several more to go.
Some of what you say may be true, but who do we have in the Senate who is any better? Cruz can't single-handedly defeat Obamacare or block this budget deal, so what can he do other than yap? It isn't as though he has the votes behind him to do much more than that. A fillibuster would just prolong the inevitable.
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