McCain: Tea Party Members Had ‘Mandate’ to Oppose Tax and Spending Hikes

National Review ^ | 2011-08-07 | Katrina Trinko

[rabscuttle385]

Sen. John McCain defended the Tea Party against Sen. John Kerry’s “tea party downgrade” remark on Meet the Press this morning.

“We could have reached an agreement a lot earlier, but the members of the House of Representatives had a mandate last November, and it was jobs and the economy and it was spending. And for them to then agree to tax increases and spending increases was obviously a repudiation of the mandate they felt they had from last November,” McCain said.

He said that much of the “dysfunction” in the current political system could be attributed to “the failure of the president of the United States to lead.”

“The fact is that the President never came forward with a plan,” McCain pointed out. “There was never a specific plan. There was always the so-called ‘leading from behind.’”

McCain defended the S & P downgrade, saying it would be a mistake to “shoot the messenger.” He said he hoped the downgrade would lead to the congressional super committee looking seriously at entitlement reform.

He also criticized the decision to decrease troop levels in Afghanistan, saying, “All our military leaders said it increases the risk. Why would we want to increase the risk to the lives of our men and women serving?” He said that the decrease had lead to a perception in Afghanistan and other nations of withdrawal, which was further damaging the Afghanistan mission.

[SaraJohnson]

He knows what he vomited out in public to help Obama’s cause of avoiding making spending cuts. He’s trying to mitigate the damage he’s caused to his own reputation in the Senate. Too late Johnnyboy.

Senate Republicans should shun him. This is one backstab too far. He’s now joined Obama in a political game that threatened the world with default and resulted in the downgrading of the US credit. He’s gone too far. Backbench him or transfer him officially to Obama’s party.

[NoGrayZone]

This whole thing has gone too far. I feared that we have been going over the cliff at such a accelerated rate, now I'm in panic mode.

[SaraJohnson]

It was treason to play politics with the debt ceiling like Obama chose to do in trotting out Geithner to threaten the world with default when they had no intention nor need to default on our loans even if the debt ceiling was not passed. They set a false deadline to create panic and to conclude the orchestrated election drama before Obama’s big fund raising birthday bash.

They made the US look like a banana republic being run by unstable jihadists holding knives to everyone’s throats to get a ransom from the taxpayers and US Treasury. The whole time they are shouting “The Tea Party is making us do!” to gain political points for an election. The president decided to play this kind of high stakes political game for a election performance and his poor judgement and carelessness harmed the Nation greatly. He should be impeached.