Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor still has no idea why voters shipped him from Congress to K-Street in last fall’s election.
Conservative David Brat upset the well-funded and GOP Establishment-backed Cantor. Brat’s victory set the tone for the current Conservative revolution taking place in the House.
Cantor revealed in an interview with BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur that he still has no idea what it means to be a Republican.
“Here’s where I think a lot of the anger and furry is coming from, go back to what I said before that somewhere along the line expectations became Republicans with the majority in the House could somehow change the law without having the president agree to their demands,” Cantor said.
The expectations were set by the political ads and promises made by GOP politicians who claimed if they only had control of both Houses, they’d be able to stop the Obama agenda. How’s that turned out so far?
“This is when the so-called radicals were out there demanding a shutdown, or default in the federal debt, and so if Republicans are seen and portrayed to have not delivered on what they said they would have, which is again an untrue statement, then Donald Trump is an outsider along with Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson – they’re outsiders,” Cantor whined.
There’s that word again: Radicals.
The radicals who expect the GOP to put up an actual fight. To use the powers Congress owns as part of the Constitution. Instead of shrugging about not having enough votes, instead of suspending the filibuster rule or taking Obamacare through a reconciliation process, they merely shrug: ‘Can’t do it. Don’t have enough votes.’
As if the American people are going to pat them on the back and say: ‘Well you tried.’
It’s not enough when the Establishment lies about the government defaulting. The United States government will NEVER default. Why?
Because all the debt is in American currency. All it has to do it print more of its own money.
“As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
So when Cantor and his buddies John Boehner and Mitch McConnell started talking about budgets and extending the debt ceiling they opened their negotiations by declaring they didn’t want to default (an impossibility) and they didn’t want to shutdown the government (it would be the President who would actually shut down the government).
Here’s another example on Obamacare where Paul Ryan explained to radio host Mark Levin how he was sure about 85% of Obamacare could be abolished through the budget reconciliation process.
“When you have the out party, which the Republican Party has been outside the White House for almost eight years and you have an open seat – so there’s no Democratic incumbent – when you have that situation, voters tend to be angry. They’re super angry,” Cantor added.
Yes Eric, the voters are angry, but not for the reasons you suggest.
