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Ted Cruz on Budget & Economy

Republican Texas Senator

 


I am bullish on crypto & bitcoin; it is decentralized

We need to decentralize. We need to break it apart. It is one of the reasons why I am so bullish on crypto, on bitcoin. It is decentralized and not controllable. That is why China recently banned bitcoin. They can't control it which is the same reason Elizabeth Warren hates bitcoin. The Chinese Communists and Elizabeth Warren both want to control you: your savings, your speech, your children. Every decision they want to control. We need to break up the means of controlling the citizenry.
Source: Speech at the 2022 CPAC Conference in Orlando FL , Feb 24, 2022

Choose individual liberty over more & more spending

Q: Support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth?

Ted Cruz (R): No. Choice between more & more spending & individual liberty.

Beto O'Rourke (D): Yes. Supports investment in areas like infrastructure & education.

Source: 2018 CampusElect.org Issue Guide on Texas Senate race , Oct 9, 2018

Original sponsor of Audit-The-Fed bill

Q [to Sen. Rand PAUL]: Senator Cruz's campaign is out with a video saying that Cruz is the intellectual and political heir to your father's 2012 campaign and the liberty movement.

PAUL: We had an Audit-the-Fed vote, which was the biggest thing my dad had been advocating for, for 30 years, Ted didn't have time to show up. He was the only Republican that didn't show up for it.

CRUZ: I very much respect Ron Paul; to win in the Republican Party [a candidate] has to be able to bring together the disparate elements of the Reagan coalition: conservatives and evangelicals and libertarians. When it comes to the Audit-the-Fed bill, as Rand knows well, I was an original sponsor of the bill, I'm strongly supportive of it. It didn't have the votes to pass. And I had commitments to be at a town hall in New Hampshire. But I look forward to signing that bill into law as president and auditing the Fed and providing needed accountability at the Federal Reserve.

Source: 2016 Fox News Republican two-tiered debate in Iowa , Jan 28, 2016

Would I bail out the banks again? Absolutely not!

Q: Senator Cruz, would you go after the people on Wall Street that Bernie Sanders says have "gotten away with a financial murder"?

CRUZ: Absolutely yes. You know, I have spent much of my adult life enforcing the law and defending the Constitution. And the problem that underlies all of this is the cronyism and corruption of Washington.

Q: Would you bail out the big banks again?

A: Nobody gave you an answer to that. I'll give you an answer. Absolutely not! The biggest lie in all of politics is that Republicans are the party of the rich. The truth is, the rich do great with big government. The big banks get bigger and bigger under Dodd-Frank and community banks are going out of business.

KASICH: When a bank is ready to go under and depositors are getting ready to lose their life savings, you just don't say we believe in philosophical concerns. When there are financial crisis, you got to go there and try to fix it.

Source: Fox Business/WSJ First Tier debate , Nov 10, 2015

I would not bail out Bank of America

Q: If Bank of America were on the brink, you would let it fail?

CRUZ: Yes. One of the reasons we had the financial crash is throughout the 2000s, the Federal Reserve had loose money, and then in 2008, the Fed tightened the money, which caused a cascading collapse. That's why I support getting back to rules-based monetary system not with a bunch of philosopher-kings deciding.

Q: I understand that. I just want to be clear, that millions of depositors would be on the line with that decision. If it were to happen again, for whatever the reason, you would let it go, you would let a Bank of America go?

Q: I would not bail them out, but instead of adjusting monetary policy according to whims and getting it wrong causing booms and busts, what the Fed should be doing is keeping our money tied to a stable level of gold & serving as a lender of last resort. If you have a run on the bank, the Fed can serve as a lender of last resort, but it's not a bailout. It is a loan at higher interest rates.

Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate , Nov 10, 2015

1.2% annual growth over last 8 years is a disaster

From 2008 to today, our economy has grown 1.2 percent a year on average. The Obama economy is a disaster. If you look at history, there are three levers that government has to facilitate growth. The first is tax reform. I have rolled out a simple flat tax: 10 percent for every American that would produce growth and 4.9 million new jobs within a decade. The second is regulatory reform. The third element is sound money. Every time we've pursued all three of those, the result has been growth.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate , Nov 10, 2015

Audit the Fed; then end quantitative easing

The first thing we need to do is audit the Fed. I am a co-sponsor of Rand Paul's audit the Fed legislation. The second thing we need to do is bring together a bipartisan commission to look at getting back to rules- based monetary policy, end this Star Chamber that has been engaging in this experiment of quantitative easing. The Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy and focus on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold.
Source: GOP "Your Money/Your Vote" 2015 CNBC 1st-tier debate , Oct 28, 2015

Use debt limit as leverage for policy change

Q: You are a believer in using the debt limit for leverage. What do you want Republican leadership to do with the debt limit?

CRUZ: What I'd like to see on the debt limit is Republican leaders fight for something. For Pete's sakes, anything.

Source: Meet the Press 2015 interview moderated by Chuck Todd , Oct 18, 2015

Top 1% under Obama got fat & happy while workers are hurting

Q: We saw these new unemployment numbers this week showing the economy has created more than a million jobs in the last three months, the best record in 17 years. What's the answer when Hillary runs on that?

CRUZ: Well, look, if Hillary Clinton wants to run by telling Americans that the economy is doing great and you can credit President Obama and Hillary Clinton for that, I would encourage her to follow that strategy. Because the simple reality is, that's true for the wealthy. The top 1% under President Obama, the millionaires and billionaires that he constantly demagogued, earned a higher share for our income than any year since 1928. Those with power and influence who walk the corridors of power of the Obama administration have gotten fat and happy under big government. But I'll tell you, hardworking men and women across America are hurting. We today have the lowest labor force participation since 1978: 92 million Americans aren't working, and we've seen wages stagnate.

Source: ABC This Week 2015 interviews of 2016 presidential hopefuls , Feb 8, 2015

Lost Generation: Obama agenda hammers young people

How do you win young people? Who are the two Republicans in modern times who have most energized young people: Ronald Reagan & Ron Paul. Neither one of them were young or rugged. They were septuagenarians, yet what did they do? They stood for principle. They painted a bold, inspiring vision for America and young people said 'that's the vision I want to be behind.'

If you were to sit down and try to design how to hammer the living daylights out of young people, you couldn't do better than the Obama economic agenda. Under Obama, we've had five years of great stagnation, no economic growth, which means one generation, after another, can't find jobs. You know economists are referring to this generation of young people as a 'lost generation.' ObamaCare, one of the easiest ways to understand it, it's a massive wealth transfer, from young healthy people to everybody else. And then our national debt from $10 trillion dollars to $17 trillion--who the heck do you think is going to pay for that?

Source: Speech at 2014 CPAC convention , Mar 7, 2014

Balanced budget amendment to stop bankrupting our country

We need to pass a strong balanced budget amendment. We need to stop bankrupting our country. Right now our kids and grandkids are inheriting a country where our national debt is larger than the size of our entire economy. Let me speak right now to everyone in the room who didn't applaud when I said, 'are there any young people here,' what we're doing to our kids and grandkids is morally wrong. It is an outrage. If we keep on this road, they will spend their entire lives, not to meet the needs of the future, not to meet the needs of their priorities, but instead, just working to pay off the debts that their deadbeat parents and grandparents stuck them with. Our parents didn't do that to us. Their parents didn't do that to them, and the reasons we're here today is, we're not going to do it to the next generation. We are going to turn this around.
Source: Speech at 2014 CPAC convention , Mar 7, 2014

Choice is more federal spending, or free markets & liberty

This election presents a stark choice. Two visions: we can continue down the road of the Obama Democrats, towards more and more spending, debt and government control of the economy and our lives. Or we can return to the founding principles of our nation- free markets, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty.

23 million Americans struggling for work. $16 trillion in national debt. Government takeovers of healthcare, of financial services and many aspects of our economy. Imagine, for a moment, if someone surreptitiously charged hundreds of thousands of dollars on your credit cards, saddling your kids with debts they could never escape. That's exactly the impact of this administration's misguided policies.

How do we turn things around? How do we get America back to work? President Obama thinks the answer is more and more government. Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.

Source: 2012 Republican National Convention speech , Aug 28, 2012

FactCheck: Yes, gross federal debt now exceeds GDP

Ted Cruz said the rising national debt was, as of today, "larger than our gross domestic product." Cruz's prepared text attributes his conclusion to an Oct. 2011 blog post by the Atlantic magazine suggesting the debt would surpass the nation's GDP by the end of that month.

The government defines the GDP, the marquee measure of national economic output, as the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property within the country: currently $15.6 trillion.

The gross debt is best understood in two parts: Intragovernmental debt (money owed to other government agencies, basically an internal accounting issue) plus public debt (money borrowed from outside sources, giving it more of a connection to the economy). The public debt [is about] 73% of GDP--the highest level since 1950. The gross federal debt is $15.9 trillion, counting $4.8 trillion in intragovernmental holdings. [Cruz is correct if comparing GDP to the less-meaningful gross debt]. We rate this claim as Half True.

Source: PolitiFact on 2012 Republican National Convention speech , Aug 27, 2012

Demand a Balanced Budget amendment.

Cruz signed the Contract From America

The Contract from America, clause 3. Demand a Balanced Budget:

Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

Source: The Contract From America 10-CFA03 on Jul 8, 2010

Limit federal spending growth to per-capita inflation rate.

Cruz signed the Contract From America

The Contract from America, clause 6. End Runaway Government Spending:

Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

Source: The Contract From America 10-CFA06 on Jul 8, 2010

Supports the Cut-Cap-and-Balance Pledge.

Cruz signed the Cut-Cap-and-Balance Pledge to limit government

[The Cut-Cap-and-Balance Pledge is sponsored by a coalition of several hundred Tea Party, limited-government, and conservative organizations].

Despite our nation`s staggering $14.4 trillion debt, there are many Members of the U.S. House and Senate who want to raise our nation`s debt limit without making permanent reforms in our fiscal policies. We believe that this is a fiscally irresponsible position that would place America on the Road to Ruin. At the same time, we believe that the current debate over raising the debt limit provides a historic opportunity to focus public attention, and then public policy, on a path to a balanced budget and paying down our debt.

We believe that the `Cut, Cap, Balance` plan for substantial spending cuts in FY 2012, a statutory spending cap, and Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is the minimum necessary precondition to raising the debt limit. The ultimate goal is to get us back to a point where increases in the debt limit are no longer necessary. If you agree, take the Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge!

    I pledge to urge my Senators and Member of the House of Representatives to oppose any debt limit increase unless all three of the following conditions have been met:
  1. Cut: Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
  2. Cap: Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.
  3. Balance: Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.
Source: Cut-Cap-and-Balance Pledge 12-CCB on Jan 1, 2012

Supports a constitutional BBA.

Cruz supports the CC Voters Guide question on a constitutional BBA

Christian Coalition publishes a number of special voter educational materials including the Christian Coalition Voter Guides, which provide voters with critical information about where candidates stand on important faith and family issues. The Christian Coalition Voters Guide summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: "Passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution"

Source: Christian Coalition Voter Guide 12-CC-q11c on Oct 31, 2012

Endorsed by the Club for Growth, for pro-growth stances.

Cruz is endorsed by by the Club for Growth, a conservative PAC

The Club for Growth endorses economic conservatives. Their endorsement statement:

`Members of the Club are economic conservatives, like-minded political contributors who are frustrated with the ideological drift of both parties today. Club members have a shared goal of contributing to and electing more Reaganites to Congress who are willing to stand for the issues like: cutting taxes, controlling federal spending, personal accounts for Social Security, ending the death tax, eliminating the capital gains tax, fundamental tax reform, providing true school choice and minimizing government`s role in our daily lives.`

Source: CFG website 12-CFG on Oct 31, 2012

Audit the Federal Reserve & its actions on mortgage loans.

Cruz co-sponsored Federal Reserve Transparency Act

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act directs: