By Erik Wasson
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called freshman GOP Sen.
Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a “schoolyard bully” during a contentious exchange
Monday on the Senate floor.
The two senators bickered as Cruz rose to object to Reid’s motion to appoint conferees to a House-Senate budget committee.
Cruz said he was concerned that the conference report—which cannot be
filibustered—would be used to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. He asked
that Reid amend his motion to go to conference to make out of order any
provisions raising taxes or raising the debt ceiling.
Reid said Cruz had a chance to amend the Senate budget—which raises $975
billion in new tax revenue from tax reform—when it was considered on
the floor.
He said Cruz’s request to eliminate all taxes in a final House-Senate budget was absurd.
“The senator from Texas was on the losing side…now he wants us to adopt
the losing side’s view or we cannot go to conference,” Reid said.
“My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully,” Reid added.
"He pushes everybody around and is losing and instead of playing
the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with
him, but he changes the rules that way no one wins except the bully who
tries to indicate to people that he has won."
Cruz, a Tea Party darling whose rhetoric has sometimes raised eyebrows
among Republicans, shot back that “I wasn’t aware we are in the
schoolyard.”
Reid cut him off saying “enough.”
Cruz is a rising GOP star whose speaking engagements have some thinking he is plotting a presidential run in 2016.
This is the second time Republicans have blocked an effort to go to conference on the budget.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) last month objected to a conference on behalf of
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Budget
Committee.
“Why are my Republican colleagues so afraid?” Reid asked Monday in
making his request. “We have our differences but Democrats aren’t afraid
to work out those differences.”
Reid accused the GOP of “whining” about the Senate not producing a
budget for four years and then refusing to bring about a conference.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that he wants a
framework agreement before convening a conference committee. Such a
framework could facilitate a down payment on the debt, he said.
Ramsey Cox contributed to this story.
Harry Reid on Raising the Budgets and the Debt Ceiling 2006
Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid- The Obstructionist
