In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is firing away at President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner and pretty much everyone else in Washington for hatching a ploy to try to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which expired about a month ago.
“The Ex-Im Bank is the Washington Cartel at its worst,” Cruz said when asked about the emerging ploy by career politicians in D.C. to reauthorize the bank.
The Washington Cartel consists of career politicians in both parties who get in bed with Washington lobbyists, with special interests, and enrich those interests at the expense of the American taxpayers. The Ex-Im Bank consists of taxpayers providing hundreds of millions of dollars of loan guarantees to a handful of giant corporations, each of whom has armies of lobbyists that write campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans who campaign in support of free markets, who campaign in support of turning around our deficit and debt, who campaign in support of principles like welfare reform. Now is the time to decide whether your principles matter more than campaign dollars.
Cruz had specific messages to every rank-and-file Republican, every rank-and-file Democrat and the two top GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, McConnell and Boehner, that he wants to make clear ahead of any Ex-Im effort.
“To every Republican: Are you going to join with Barack Obama in perpetuating the cronyism and corporate welfare of the Export-Import Bank, or are you going to stand up and honor the promises you made to the men and women who elected you?” Cruz said.
For Senate and House Republican leadership, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, to prove they were telling the truth that there was no corrupt deal on the Ex-Im Bank that they used to grease the passage of Trade Promotion Authority, this week leadership has the opportunity to demonstrate whether they were telling the truth or not. And to all of the Democrats who use populist language, who talk about standing against the moneyed interests, the hypocrisy on the Democratic side is deep—and that’s not a word I use accidentally because all those corporate lobbyists are writing checks to the Democrats also. Any Democrat who believes the populist rhetoric about not enriching giant corporations has an opportunity to put up or shut up. Any Democrat who votes to re-authorize the Export-Import Bank has made clear that their allegiance isn’t to the working man or woman. Their allegiance is to big money and big business and big government, all of which is about power and money, and it’s why working men and women are so frustrated today. The 10 wealthiest counties in America are in and around Washington, D.C. Those who walk the corridors of power in the Obama administration are getting fat and happy, and working men and women are getting hammered under the Washington cartel’s policies.
The procedure by which McConnell plans to aim to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank is by attaching an amendment that would do so to the highway bill. That process is playing out in the Senate right now, and it’s unclear whether McConnell plans to move forward with his plans to do so—but if he does, it’s a move that would all but ensure Senate passage of Ex-Im reauthorization since leaders currently boast at least 63 votes perhaps as many as 65 for it.
They need 60 votes to clear the key cloture hurdle. It’s unclear, however, if the House would be able to pass the highway bill with Ex-Im—a non-germane amendment—contained inside of it. At this time, on a six-year bill, it seems unlikely, leadership there has indicated according to congressional sources. But, the House may be able to pull off such a tricky maneuver if the timeframe of the highway bill goes down to something like two years from six years.
All that being said, with McConnell helping Democrats like Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) offer a non-germane amendment to the highway bill—this all stems from a promise McConnell made to Murray during the Obamatrade fiasco—then the question becomes why won’t McConnell allow votes on non-germane amendments to the highway bill like efforts to defund Planned Parenthood after covert videos show the leaders of that organization aimed to sell aborted baby body parts for money.
Or, why no sanctuary cities defunding amendment after Kate Steinle was just murdered in San Francisco, allegedly by an illegal alien who was deported five times previously but snuck back in and traveled to San Francisco so he wouldn’t be deported? There are countless more amendments that could be offered that aren’t germane to the highway bill, and McConnell opening this door could prove to be a very dangerous move if his own conference rebels and starts offering all sorts of other amendments on things that are purer in that lobbyists aren’t funding their passage through Congress.
It remains to be seen how this will all go down but answers will likely be available to these various questions in the next 48 to 72 hours.
Cruz’s interview with Breitbart News, the rest of which is forthcoming, focused mostly on his new book “A Time For Truth” with the exception of this part about the Ex-Im Bank. The interview came hours before President Obama himself, according to USA Today, met with 10 different business leaders whose “bottom line” benefits from the Ex-Im Bank existing–something Cruz agreed is proof positive the Ex-Im Bank is a government agency picking winners and losers in a crony capitalism style operation.
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