Alex Pappas reports for The Daily Caller on an interesting passage from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s new book.
Cruz specifically criticizes the Republican leadership in the Senate for how they dealt with the issue of raising the debt ceiling in early 2014. …
… Cruz said the leadership asked senators to agree to a 50-vote threshold for the debt ceiling legislation.
The GOP leadership, Cruz writes, wanted Republicans to agree to this so “Democrats would then have the votes to raise the debt ceiling on their own. We could all vote no. This way, we could return home and tell the voters that we had opposed raising the debt ceiling, right after consenting to let it happen.”
“Most senators seemed perfectly fine with the leadership’s proposal,” Cruz writes. “There were nods and murmurs of assent.”
Cruz said that for him, it “was too much.”
“I raised my hand and said, ‘There’s no universe in which I can consent to that.’”
He said he explained to the lawmakers: “If I were to affirmatively consent to making it easier for Democratic Senate leader 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.”
His opposition to the maneuver made many GOP colleagues upset, he said.
“In the two years I’ve been in the Senate, nothing I have said or done has engendered more venom and animosity from my fellow Republicans than the simple objection I made that afternoon,” Cruz recalled.
Cruz explained: “What infuriated them was that by objecting to the unanimous consent deal they had cut, it forced those Republicans who wanted the debt ceiling raised to actually admit so in public with their recorded vote. It prevented them from misleading their constituents.”
