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Cornyn on Balanced Budget Amendment, Obama’s Failure to Lead, Fast and Furious

By: Robert Bluey (Diary)  |  November 16th, 2011 at 10:16 PM  | 

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) had tough words for President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder following a speech today at The Heritage Foundation. He criticized Obama for a failure to lead and voiced concern about Holder’s handling of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

“Unfortunately, the president is already campaigning, trying to channel Harry Truman, railing against a ‘do-nothing Congress’ when he’s apparently given up on governing,” Cornyn said in response to a question about the budget debate in Washington. “He’s not really contributing to the solution.”

With the House and Senate preparing to vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment, there is concern among conservatives that lawmakers will act on a proposal that includes weaker language than others.

Cornyn (R-TX) spoke about the importance of enacting the strongest possible version, one that caps federal spending at 18 percent of the economy and requires a super-majority vote in Congress to increase taxes.

When asked about the botched gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious, Cornyn criticized Holder for being uncooperative with Congress. Cornyn said he was not satisfied with Holder’s congressional testimony last week: “We need to get to the bottom of this and we’re going to continue to press the issue until we get to the truth.”

The interview runs about 5 minutes. Hosted by Rob Bluey and produced by Brandon Stewart. For more videos from Heritage, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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  • DerKrieger

    …know the GOP has passed a lot of good legislation but does the general public? I don’t see a whole lt of leadership coming from the stupid and feckless party. Where are their spines? It amazes me that even with a commanding majority in the House the GOP is still being led around by the nose by the Left, still “compromising” with the Left by moving completely to their position.
    To use a football analogy, the Left asks for a touchdown and instead of saying no, the GOP allows them to get to the 50 yard line. The fools think they have won.
    In the next negotiation the Left again asks for a touchdown and again the GOP declines but offers up the 25 yard line.
    This process repeats itself until the Left either secures the touchdown or are so close the final yard is meaningless.
    Not once does the GOP push the ball in the opposite direction. NEVER.
    That is why year after year, decade after decade we have moved closer and closer to socialism. The Left has practiced their strategy of incrementalism successfully for decades and continue to do so now.

    I’d rather see no BBA passed than get some watered down version the Left will use as reason to raise taxes.

    I want, we all want, conservative LEADERS who will take the fight aggressively to the statists and start to reverse, not slow, the inexorable tide of socialism that is smothering us all.

  • huapakechi

    As long as the current system is in place, allowing eternal incumbency, we will be faced with corruption.

    Eliminate some basic problems at the heart of incumbency and political party intransigence,

    1) Abolish election for Representatives. Select people to fill those offices by means of a draft lottery, the qualifications for inclusion to be determined by the individual states.

    2) Repeal the 17th Amendment, but make Senators subject to term limits and recall by plebiscite, state legislature, and immediate recall by the state Governor.

    3) Make the state sending these officials to Washington responsible for their pay and benefits, to include any staff and travel.

    Either those suggested changes, which would be rather painless, or maybe an open season and no bag limit. I’d bet we could retire the national debt selling hunting licenses.

    • cbartlett

      is one of the most overwhelming problems causing our county’s decline. It begets many other problems. Not so sure about your 3 solutions, though. Just simple term limits for House and Sentate, and follow Rick Perry’s suggestion of seriously cutting their salaries and benefits. We have way too many incentives for congressmen to stay in, become career politicians and do whatever it takes to continually be re-elected. I just don’t believe our founding fathers intended for it to happen this way. BUT as long as they are the ones making the laws to “not” limit the number of terms and to increase their salaries and benefits, is there any hope to change the system?