Senator Ted Cruz Interview

TYLER – Senator Ted Cruz was in Tyler on Monday touring the University of Texas Health Science Center. KTBB’s Paul Gleiser caught up with the senator for a conversation on the debt ceiling fight in Washington. The bill that avoided a default on the US debt passed, but Cruz was not happy with the version that was agreed upon.

“I think the spending and the debt we’ve seen from Washington is wildly irresponsible and we are bankrupting this country,” Cruz said. “Historically the most effective lever point to reign in spending has been the debt ceiling. So I was a proponent from day one, let’s use this debt ceiling as leverage to force some kind of reasonable spending restraint.”

Cruz is of the opinion that the White House “rolled the Republican leadership.” He feels the spending restraints in the deal were very modest.

“They (the White House) got Republicans to fund virtually the entire Biden political agenda,” Cruz said, “and it was a real missed opportunity.”

Cruz feels the agreement will only fuel continued inflation that will be felt due to the accumulated debt.

When asked why the Congress hasn’t passed a budget in regular orders since 1996, Cruz was pessimistic.

“I don’t think that will be fixed,” he replied.”The incentives right now in Washington is for both sides to go right up to the edge of the cliff, threaten either a government shutdown or a default on the debt because what happens then is a giant omnibus budget bill gets negotiated behind closed doors…and it’s Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer who negotiate it and then roll out a giant bill that inevitably funds all the Democratic priorities.”

Cruz also discussed the charges of politicization of the FBI and Justice Department. You can hear the entire conversation here…
Ted Cruz Interview