On Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo, and hammered Republicans in the House and Senate who voted for the infrastructure package, saying they “breathed life into” the “failing” Democrat agenda.
“You had an opportunity there to stop this whole agenda, but your colleagues decided not to go that path. You had 19 of your colleagues in the Senate vote for the infrastructure package; you had 13 in the House vote for the infrastructure package,” Bartiromo said. “What exactly did that do? Now, because they did that, the path is wide open for much higher taxes for the rest of us to pay. Isn’t that true?”
“It’s exactly true, and it’s maddening,” Cruz replied.
The senator added that Republicans spent many lunches “yelling at each other” about the bill, with the Republicans who voted for it allegedly under the belief that if the infrastructure package were to pass, the Democrats’ social spending bill would be “less likely to pass.”
And I will tell you, in the House, for the House Republicans who voted for this, Joe Biden and the Democrats, their agenda was on the rails. It was failing. It was on the way to going down. And what those Republicans did is they breathed life into it; they gave Joe Biden a political win. He’ll now go across the country touting, look at this big bipartisan win. And that additional momentum, unfortunately, makes it more likely that they whip their Democrats into shape and pass some multi-trillion-dollar spending bill on top of this that will include, unfortunately, trillions in new taxes. That’s what the stakes are all about. I still hope it doesn’t happen.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
BARTIROMO: Well, you would have thought that the Democrats saw Virginia and New Jersey as a wake up call to slow things down. In fact, it’s the opposite. You had an opportunity there to stop this whole agenda, but your colleagues decided not to go that path. You had 19 of your colleagues in the Senate vote for the infrastructure package; you had 13 in the House vote for the infrastructure package. What exactly did that do? Now, because they did that, the path is wide open for much higher taxes for the rest of us to pay. Isn’t that true?
CRUZ: It’s exactly true, and it’s maddening. I can tell you in the Senate, we spent week after week at lunch yelling at each other, with most of the Republicans saying to those who wanted to support this infrastructure bill, “Why are you doing it? Why are you facilitating the Bernie Sanders socialist budget?” They argued, “No, no, no, if we pass this, it’ll make the other less likely to pass.” That never made sense to me. The Democrats never made any agreement to that. They didn’t say, “We won’t pursue the Bernie Sanders budget.” What they said is, “Okay, we’ll take both; we’ll take $1.2 trillion here, and then we’ll take $5.5 trillion here.” That’s what the Democrats said.
And I will tell you, in the House, for the House Republicans who voted for this, Joe Biden and the Democrats, their agenda was on the rails. It was failing. It was on the way to going down. And what those Republicans did is they breathed life into it; they gave Joe Biden a political win. He’ll now go across the country touting, look at this big bipartisan win. And that additional momentum, unfortunately, makes it more likely that they whip their Democrats into shape and pass some multi-trillion-dollar spending bill on top of this that will include, unfortunately, trillions in new taxes. That’s what the stakes are all about. I still hope it doesn’t happen.
And I hope Joe Manchin does what you suggested, what he suggested, which is to say, “Hey, let’s kick this till next year. Let’s wait until inflation is licked, till we’ve stopped inflation, then we can talk about the next package.” I think that would show a lot of wisdom. That would be a very statesman-like act for Joe Manchin to do.