Sen. Cruz: This Disagreement Is Over One Issue -- Can Senate Raise Debt Ceiling with Only 50 Votes?

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) today addressed the Senate floor reiterating his willingness to move forward with the budget if the Senate agrees not to use the budget process to raise the debt ceiling with a simple majority vote. Several senators are asking to move towards a budget conference, which would enable Democrats to raise the debt ceiling with a mere 50-vote threshold. However, a debt ceiling increase considered through normal order would require 60 votes.

“For 62 days we have asked the majority leader, ‘Simply say we won't use this as a procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes, and we can go to conference.’ And for 62 days the majority leader has said, ‘No, I will not do that.’

“It's easy to get confused by all of the procedural discussions back and forth. This issue is about one issue alone -- should Majority Leader Harry Reid be able to raise the debt limit an unlimited amount with just 50 votes? Or should it require 60? … If it's just 50, the majority leader has the votes right now to write a blank check for the federal debt. The American people want us to fix the problem and stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper, stop putting our kids and grandkids on the path to Greece. And I am proud that so many senators are standing here working very hard to honor our commitments to our constituents because that's exactly what our job is.”

View the senator’s floor address here:

Below are rush excerpts of the senator’s remarks:

If I could, I'd like to cut through all the arguments back and forth because in my view most of the arguments are, by design, missing the point of this disagreement. This disagreement is over one issue and one issue only: can the United States Senate raise our debt limit with only 50 votes, or does it take 60? Everything else that's being talked about is smoke, it is a side issue.

---

For 62 days we have asked the majority leader: “Simply say we won't use this as a procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes, and we can go to conference.” And for 62 days the majority leader has said, “No, I will not do that.” And those protestations make it absolutely clear what this is about.

I think on both sides of the chambers there are different things at work. On the Democratic side of the chamber, President Obama has been very explicit. He wants to raise the debt limit and he has said he wants no debate about it, he wants to shut down the discussion. He simply wants an unlimited credit card to keep digging the debt hole this nation is in deeper and deeper and deeper.

What our friends the Democrats are doing is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Democrat president in fighting to enable the United States Senate to raise the debt limit with just 50 votes, which means if that happens, that would then allow the 55-member democratic majority to vote to do so without listening to a word from the minority.

---

Here's the dirty little secret about some of those on the right side of the aisle. There are some who would very much like to cast a symbolic vote against raising the debt ceiling and nonetheless to allow our friends on the left side of the aisle to raise the debt ceiling. That to some Republicans is the ideal outcome because they can go to their constituents and say, “See, I voted no and yet at the same time, wonderfully they lost and they didn't actually have to stand up and stop what was happening.”

The senior senator from Arizona has impugned the Republicans by claiming repeatedly that it is only a minority of Republicans who are opposed to raising the debt ceiling on just 50 votes…It has [also] been suggested that those of us who are fighting to defend liberty, fighting to turn around the out-of-control spending and out-of-control debt in this country, fighting to defend the Constitution, it has been suggested that we are whacko birds. Well, if that is the case, there may be more whacko birds in the senate than is suspected.

Indeed, I would encourage my friend, the senior senator from Arizona, that if he were to circulate to Republicans a simple statement that said, "We, the undersigned Republican senators, hereby state that we support giving Harry Reid and the democrats the ability to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes instead of 60," I believe he will find his representation to this body that it is only a minority of republicans that oppose – that is not accurate.

This issue gets obscured by the procedural complexities and that's not by accident. Washington is very good at speaking doublespeak that make the citizens' eyes glaze over. But at its heart, it's very, very simple. Majority Leader Reid and the democrats want to raise the debt ceiling.

---

We could go to conference right now today if the democrats would simply say, “We won't raise the debt ceiling with just using 50 votes. We will debate it on the floor with a 60-vote threshold and actually be forced to find some bipartisan agreement. But that's not what the majority wants to do.

---

I don't believe it's right that a majority of the Republicans in this body have given up the fight… on reining in out-of-control Washington bipartisan spending, deficits and debt. I believe we are seeing leadership in this body stand together to fix the problem. That is what the American people want.

So let me say this, in closing. It's easy to get confused by all of the procedural discussions back and forth. This issue is about one issue alone -- should Majority Leader Harry Reid be able to raise the debt limit an unlimited amount with just 50 votes? Or should it require 60?

If it requires 60, there will have to be some positive steps made to fix the problem. If it's just 50, the majority leader has the votes right now today to write a blank check for the federal debt. That's the issue. And I think the American people are not conflicted in the answer to that issue. The American people want us to fix the problem and stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper, stop putting our kids and grandkids on the path to Greece. And I am proud that so many senators are standing here working very hard to honor our commitments to our constituents because that's exactly what our job is.

###