Ted Cruz was asked to weigh in today on the ‘growing debate’ of whether the federal government should help bail out state governments, who might have been in dire straits before but are now in really bad shape because of the pandemic.
Below is his response:
Well as part of the CARES Act we gave assistance to state and local governments for their work fighting this crisis. But absolutely not! No we should not bail out states for fiscal irresponsibility that long predated the crisis.
You’ve got a handful of big democratic states – states like Illinois, that frankly spent like drunken sailors and are now trying to get the taxpayers in the rest of the country to foot the bill. That’s not right. It’s not fair to Texans – the state of Texas has lived within our means. Most states have lived within their means.
Yes the federal government should help with relief from this crisis and should focus on recovery but no we shouldn’t be bailing out the profligate spending of states – particularly states like Illinois that don’t intend to change. They want to keep digging the hole and get everyone else to foot the bill. That’s not right.
I completely agree with Ted Cruz here and am glad he stood his ground and said no. I worry that too many Republicans might go soft on this one because of the pandemic, and that’s the last thing we need right now with all the spending that’s going on.
Cruz made a great point that I wanted to highlight, arguing that it’s not fair for Americans who live in fiscally responsible states to have to bail out states that have “spent like drunken sailors”, as Cruz put it. He’s right and that’s very heart of the argument against a bail out. It would be the height of irresponsibility for any lawmaker, Republican or Democrat, to force people in fiscally responsible states to hand over billions of dollars to states that have put themselves in a horrible position with their blatant fiscal mismanagement, especially when they show no signs of changing.
You can watch the full interview below: