Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is blasting the bipartisan budget deal that passed the Senate this week, saying the deal “went backwards” and would only worsen the nation’s spiraling debt.
The budget compromise that had been championed by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan in the House passed the Senate by a 63 to 36 vote.
Speaking in an exclusive Newsmax Magazine interview, Cruz said Friday: “It’s a sad statement that the easiest way to get bipartisan agreement in Washington is to increase spending, debt, and taxes.
“That’s why the American people are so frustrated with career politicians in Washington in both parties, because they’re not listening to the American people and they’re not working to solve the enormous fiscal and economic challenges that we’re facing,” he added. [Source: Newsmax.com 12/21/13]
I do not agree.
If a majority of Americans were in fact so frustrated with career politicians, they would not keep voting for them.
The President of the United States is the poster boy for career politicians. The fact that he was elected with little political or life experience doesn’t change the fact that politics is all he has ever done.
Republican Senators like John McCain and Congressmen like John Boehner are walking caricatures. They’re such portraits of entrenched politicians with little or no accountability for their actions, it’s hard to believe they’re real.
Yet their constituents have sent them to office time and again, and will almost certainly continue to do so.
Why is this? Because on the local and most concrete level, Big Government wins. On the broader level, it’s not so popular.
Here’s how it works.
Is health care a right? Yes, most people agree. Do you like Obamacare? A majority still say no.
It’s a contradiction. You cannot say health care’s a right without enduring Obamacare, or something close to it.
Should taxes be high on the rich? Yes, most people say. Do you like the continuing high unemployment rate and sluggish economic growth that barely registers? Of course not.
It’s a contradiction. You cannot say you want everything to keep growing and improving, while penalizing the economic system and the producers who make it all possible.
Are deficits and a national debt in the multiple of trillions unconscionable? Of course, most people say. But should this or that program be cut? No, most whine. They don’t want it cut if it benefits them, and they don’t want it cut if it benefits another, because this will look “mean.”
People like Ted Cruz (whom I do admire) are right about Congress. But he’s wrong about the American people. The vast majority of Congress, in bipartisan numbers, would never support ever-increasing taxes, debt and government growth if they didn’t feel comfortable with the continuing support of the majority.
In a democracy, people get the government the majority deserves. When you look at what goes on in Washington, you’re seeing a sad reflection of the contradictions and evasions within the great majority of the population.
The truth may hurt, but facing the truth is the only way anything will ever change. Those of us who do not like politics in Washington should start blaming the ones the most at fault: The voters themselves.
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