Senator Cruz, who is so passionate about defunding the Affordable Care Act, which more than half the country wants funded, that he talked for more than 21 hours when no one was paying attention (seriously, he wasn’t filibustering, he was just rambling to a CSPAN camera about his misinterpretation of Green Eggs And Ham), has long supported shutting down the government and defaulting on our debt to get his way.
That said, he apparently didn’t realize that along with the troops, Congress will also not be paid.
After a 21-hour speech where he pledged to stop the upcoming Affordable Care Act or close the government trying, Senator Ted Cruz admitted during a Skype call to an Austin conference that he had not really considered what effect a shutdown would have on his own salary. After being pressed further, he conceded that he “had no intention” of giving up his paycheck if the federal government shuts down. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Friday night that 1.4 million U.S. troops will be kept on the job but not paid if a shutdown occurs.
Behind all the bluster and under the bad haircut there’s just a guy who really doesn’t understand the real world impact of his actions, just like the East Coast establishment eggheads who ran things in the 60s which is funny since he is an East Coast establishment egghead.
It’s worth pointing out, merely as a side-note, that shutting down the government would be an economic disaster and actually defaulting on the debt would cost us trillions in future costs and likely lead directly to the collapse of the US as the leading economy on this planet. It’s also worth mentioning that this story came from the DailyBeast yesterday afternoon. I tried linking directly to the original article at CBS11 in Dallas, but it’s apparently disappeared. When I searched for it on the CBS11 site, it’s showing in the results but clicking the link just takes you back to the main page. Maybe someone should take a moment and explain caching to the Senator and his press liaison?