Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday cued up a fight over Obamacare as part of debate on a six-year highway bill.
The charges from the Texas senator and GOP presidential candidate were a rare departure from the Senate’s usual staid decorum, even for a politician famous for his fiery speeches.
Mr. McConnell said the vote is designed to counter-balance a proposal from Democrats to revive the federal Export-Bank, which he opposes, but his offer on health care failed to appease vociferous opponents of the bank.
“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”, Cruz said. Cruz claims McConnell told him three times no deal had been cut to reauthorize the bank in order to get votes for a trade package that moved through the Senate earlier this year.
“I don’t see the Senate (bill) flying in the House”, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters earlier in the day.
“The majority leader looked at me and said there is no deal there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal”. Senate rules say, “no senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator”.
The only person who made out okay in Cruz’s tirade was Sen. But conservative groups like Heritage Action and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity argue that the bank is nothing more than corporate welfare that picks winners and losers and should be disbanded.
The majority leader on Friday set up a procedural vote on a proposed amendment renewing Ex-Im, which would be attached to highway funding legislation.
In addition to the Ex-Im vote, McConnell also set up a vote on repealing ObamaCare.
Cruz also dismissed the majority leader’s upcoming amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act as a “smokescreen” that’s doomed to fail, and complained that his own highway bill amendment calling for Iran to recognise Israel was not being taken seriously. “And then the leadership rammed through the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general”.
“Keep in mind, he’s running for president”, Hatch added.
On Friday he charged that the Senate under Republican control is no different from when Democrats ran the show before this year and McConnell is behaving like his Democratic predecessor, Harry Reid of Nevada. “We need to nominate an inspiring leader who has proven he is willing to take on the Washington cartel and buck the political establishment of both parties”.
Senate Republican leaders will use a must-pass highway bill as the vehicle for the latest fight over President Barack Obamas health care law. Cruz says he was assured at the time there was no deal.
