Ted Cruz: Too many Senate Republicans are willing to 'rubber stamp' Democrat spending
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joins 'Life, Liberty & Levin' to discuss the looming government shutdown, funding impasse.
Senate Rules Committee member Ted Cruz, R-Texas., told Fox News there are too many of his GOP colleagues in the upper chamber's leadership who are willing to accept wasteful spending initiatives more often presented by Democrats.
Cruz was asked on "Life, Liberty & Levin" whether some in Senate minority leadership have done anything on the fiscal front other than "supporting Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer."
"Unfortunately, there have been a lot of Senate Republicans who have been willing to rubber-stamp the out-of-control spending that we've seen in recent years -- particularly the last two-and-a-half years with a Democrat president; a Democrat House and Senate," Cruz said.
He criticized his colleagues for giving up ground gained by the newly-Republican-majority House, when several GOP senators backed a winter omnibus spending bill instead of wielding leverage to press for individual spending initiatives long supported by fiscal hawks.
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In passing an omnibus, both Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Schumer's priorities were essentially approved for the first three-fourth of the year, Cruz said, adding the move came without substantive explanation from the Republicans involved:
"So we're having a fight right now about spending. Now, it's in September. We should have had this fight in January," Cruz sais. "Why didn't we have this fight in January? Because Senate Republican leadership gave away all of the House conservatives' leverage."
He noted the national debt now stands at more than $32 trillion, a far cry from the turn of the century when it was around $5 trillion; shortly after the U.S. budget was balanced during the Clinton administration.
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Cruz said the national debt doubled under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama up until 2010, and then doubled again for the next decade under Obama.
"So understand this in context -- It took 42 presidents more than 200 years to build up $5 trillion in debt. It took two presidents, one Republican and one Democrat six years to quadruple our national debt," he said. "And now, just a few years after that, we're at $32 trillion."
Cruz added the current debt load and outlook is unsustainable and largely driven by spend-happy Democrats and the Republicans who are convinced they "cannot fight to stop it."
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