(You will want to read the full article at Breitbart.com.) Cruz . . . hammered GOP leadership for putting forward nothing more than a show vote—a meaningless vote—on repealing Obamacare.
“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare,” Cruz said.
The Republicans will all vote “Yes.” The Democrats will all vote “no.” It will be at a 60-vote threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater. Mind you when we actually had a fight to stop Obamacare and defund it, the Majority Leader was opposed. But an empty showboat, that is a good way to distract from what’s going on. There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we keep winning elections and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do anything they promised. The American people were told if only we have a Republican Majority, things will be different. Well, in 2010, the American people showed up in enormous numbers and we got a Republican majority in the House. And very little changed. Then the American people were told, you know, the problem is the Senate. If only we get a Republican majority in the Senate and retire Harry Reid as Majority Leader, then things will be different. Well, in 2014, the American people rose up in enormous numbers, voted to do exactly that. We’ve had a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress now for about six months. What was that majority done?Cruz then proceeded to detail how the 2010 and 2014 elections handing the GOP majorities in the House then Senate didn’t matter one bit at all.
“First thing we did, in December, is we came back and passed a $1 trillion Cromnibus plan filled with pork and corporate welfare,” Cruz said.
That was the very first thing we did. Then this Republican majority voted to fund Obamacare, voted to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty. And then leadership rammed through the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General. Madam President, which of those decisions would be one iota different if Harry Reid were still Majority Leader? Not a one. Not a one. This Senate operates exactly the same. The same priorities. And let me tell you why. It’s not that this majority doesn’t get things done. It does get things done. But it listens to one and only one voice. That is the voice of the Washington cartel, of the lobbyists on K Street, of the big money and big corporations. You know, if you go to the American people and ask is reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank a priority for you, the standard response for most of them would be ‘the what?’ They don’t even know what this is. Let me tell you what this is. It is an egregious example of corporate welfare. It is the American taxpayers being on the dime for hundreds of billions of dollars in loan guarantees given out to a handful of giant corporations. It is a classic example of cronyism and corporate welfare. And by the way, among others you know one person who had the clarity of thought on that?Cruz then noted how when Obama was in the Senate, he was opposed to the Ex-Im Bank—and then proceeded to further detail how the Ex-Im Bank is crony capitalism—before he turned his fire on McConnell again.
“Madam President, it saddens me to say this,” Cruz said.
I sat in my office, I told my staff the Majority Leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the eye. I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie, and I voted based on those assurances that he made to each and every one of us. What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican Senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again was a simple lie. This institution should not operate at the beck and call of lobbyists in Washington. This institution, the Majority and Minority Leader arm in arm again, should not team up against the American taxpayers. It’s why our children are going bankrupt. Now we’re facing an enormous threat with this Iran deal, a nuclear Iran poses the greatest national security threat tot his country.”
Cruz laid out next how McConnell wouldn’t take the steps he took to force the crony capitalist Ex-Im Bank through the Senate to protect the nation of Israel from President Obama’s deal with Iran.
And yet the Majority Leader refused to do what he just did for the Export Import Bank on Iran, refused to invoke cloture,” Cruz said. “That was an extraordinary step. Madam President, if he was telling us the truth when he said there was no deal, why would he do what he just did? Well, we now know that when the Majority Leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment that he is willing to say things that he knows are false. That has consequences for how this body operates. If you or I cannot trust what the Majority Leader tells us, that will have consequences on other legislation as well on how this institution operates.
