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October 21, 2013 at 07:52 AM
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday that the GOP lost the government shutdown budget battle because some congressional Republicans turned on others, but that he doesn’t think they will make the same mistake during the next political impasse.
“I am hopeful that in the future the Senate will listen,” Cruz, the Tea Party favorite and freshman senator from Texas, told a convention in Austin of the Texas Medical Association.
Cruz staged a more than 21-hour quasi-filibuster in the Senate late last month, helping spark a budget fight in the Republican-led House that partially shuttered the government in an attempt to sever funding for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Then, with the country facing a debt default, leaders in the Democratic-led Senate brokered a deal to end the standoff — which Cruz dismissed as “selling the American people down the river.”
“You don’t win a fight when your own team is firing cannons at the people who are standing up and leading, which are the House Republicans,” he said.
The deal sets up the potential for another budget showdown in January. Senate GOP leaders, however, have suggested that there won’t be a repeat of the shutdown or a potential default crisis like in recent weeks.
But addressing reporters after his speech, Cruz would not say that another fight won’t be coming.
“There will be plenty of time to consider the particular practical or strategic decisions,” he said.
