Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., forcefully defended his moves to end debate and let the Senate vote on a bill that authorized the Treasury to borrow more money to pay the existing national debt,
WHAS11 in Louisville, reported.
In doing so, he torpedoed Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's efforts to filibuster the issue. Cruz, a tea party favorite, wanted Senate Republicans to show solidarity with him.
"If 41 Republicans had stood together and just voted no, the clean debt ceiling, the blank check for President Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, would have been denied," Cruz said on the nationally syndicated Mark Levin radio program,
according to CNN.
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Since the House had passed only a clean debt ceiling bill, McConnell said, responsible leadership demanded that he whip together a dozen Republicans to join the Democratic majority and overcome Cruz's filibuster. The procedural vote was 67-31. When the actual vote on the debt limit came up, McConnell along with other Republicans, opposed the measure in a losing 55-43 vote,
CNN reported.
Campaigning in Louisville, McConnell said he favored structural changes to fiscal policy as a condition to raising the debt ceiling, Politico reported.
"We were confronted with a clean debt ceiling in the Senate or default. I believe I have to act in the best interests of the country, and every time we've been confronted with a potential crisis, the guy you're looking at is the one who stepped up to solve the problem."
McConnell said, "It was clear that we needed to produce enough procedural votes to get to a debt ceiling vote in order to avoid a default. My job is to protect the country when I can, and to step up and lead on those occasions when it's required. That's what I did."
McConnell is facing a tough re-election campaign. He is challenged by tea party candidate Matt Bevin and several other opponents in the May 20 GOP primary. A recent poll shows Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the likely Democratic nominee, leading McConnell by a 46 percent to 42 percent margin.
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