We have a new entry in the contest for the title of Most Cringe-Inducing Republican Member of Congress from Texas.
At first it was between Rep. Louie Gohmert and Rep. Steve Stockman.
More recently we saw Rep. Randy Neugebauer bullying a federal employee for doing her assigned job at the World War II Memorial in Washington during the government shutdown.
But I think we have a new leader: Rep. Blake Farenthold, who was asked by a reporter how he would respond to military veterans in his district who were angry at the prospect of losing their disability payments as a result of a government default.
“I feel like my mandate when I was elected was to go reduce the size of government, lower taxes, and increase freedom, and freedom isn’t free, and sometimes you have to make a small sacrifice to move forward with what you’re after,” Congressman Farenthold said.
Yes, congressman. If anyone needs to make sacrifices for “lower taxes” and “freedom,” it’s the men and women wounded in the service of their country, who might well go hungry or lose their homes if not for the payments you were prepared to dispense with.
He continued by saying the reason Republicans finally caved in the negotiations was the debt ceiling, specifically that not being able to pay our bills would have been disastorous for the economy.
And yet Farenthold, along with Gohmert, Stockman, Neugebauer and every other Texas Republican in Congress (and my congressman here in Virginia), voted against the agreement that ended the shutdown and prevented the default he said would be disastrous.
Update: Gail Collins of The New York Times names a couple of other contestants:
…Representative John Culberson, who cried “Let’s roll!” in an apparent belief that shutting down the government was equivalent to resisting 9/11 terrorists.
…Representative Pete Sessions, who summed things up rather neatly with: “We’re not French. We don’t surrender.”
