On Wednesday when the Senate voted to raise the debt limit without any spending cuts, Senator Ted Cruz gave a warning:

Today’s vote is yet another example that establishment politicians from both parties are simply not listening to the American people.  Outside the beltway, Americans of all political stripes understand that we cannot keep spending money we don’t have. 

Some members of Congress care so much about being praised by the Washington media that they’re willing to mortgage our children’s future. They pretend we don’t have a problem and can just kick the can down the road.

Let’s be clear about the motive behind this vote — there are too many members of Congress who think they can fool people and they will forget about it the next week. But sometimes, come November, the people remember.

Why would a senator – especially a Republican – vote to get further in debt?  Here is one argument for why 12 Republicans decided to vote with the Democrats on raising the debt limit. 

Despite his support for the proposal, Boehner put the blame for needing a “clean” debt-ceiling bill with no deficit reduction provisions on Obama, saying the rising federal debt was his fault.

“It’s the President driving up the debt and the President wanted to do nothing about the debt that’s occurring, will not engage in our long-term spending problem,” Boehner said. “And so, let his party give him the debt ceiling increase that he wants.”

It’s the old “give the Dems what they want and let THEM deal with the consequences” thinking. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.  First of all, it’s not just the Democrats who will have to deal with our unsustainable debt.  All Americans – including our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren – will be dealing with it.  And secondly,  the majority of Americans tend to blame Republicans for anything negative that happens, regardless of the facts.  With the help of a complicit press, the Dems have been Teflon-coated in recent years.

Still, I hope Cruz is right.  I hope that grassroots Americans will remember who voted to spend money we don’t have, who lied to us repeatedly, and who looked the other way to score political points.  For the most part, Washington politicians are rotten to the core.  It is only “We, the People” who can save America now, and we save it via our votes.  Of course, with voter fraud rampant, even that means of change is in question.