Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is worried about dysfunction in Congress, but he's placing the blame for inaction squarely at the feet of Democrats in Washington.
"It should embarrass all of us, and it's the result of a deliberate partisan decision," the Texas Republican said in an interview scheduled to air on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
Congress has predictably dithered on domestic crises this week, struggling to address an influx of unaccompanied minors on the U.S.-Mexico border and stalling on a last-ditch effort to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs before the scheduled August recess. While legislators have produced several bills, they have been unable to coalesce around bipartisan solutions to either issue.
For Cruz, the problem is a detached administration and an unwilling Senate Democratic Caucus.
"The crisis on the border, unfortunately President Obama and Harry Reid have demonstrated no interest in solving it," Cruz said in the interview. "President Obama a couple of weeks ago was down in Texas. He went to Democratic party fundraisers, had plenty of time to pal around with fat cats in the Democratic party, and collect their checks for politics."
"But he had no time to go to the border. He had no time to visit the air force bases where these children are being held, are suffering because of the failures of his immigration policy and his lawlessness," he added.
It's a bit much for the ideological bomb-thrower to lament dysfunction in Congress just days after vowing to block all nominees to an understaffed State Department until the White House explains why the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded U.S. flights to Israel. And there's still the matter of last year's federal government shutdown, which was spurred by Cruz's quixotic demand to defund the Affordable Care Act.
