One day after the Senate passed the much-debated omnibus spending bill, syndicated columnist George Will was critical of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Ted Cruz, both of whom opposed the bill. Will told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that “no one knows what they were trying to accomplish” with their opposition, a subtle dig against the possibility of a shutdown.
While he was critical, he also warned those “clamoring” for bipartisanship will “get a good look at it and recoil in horror.”
WILL: “Well, this is how you get things done. The country clamors for bipartisanship, that’s what it looks like. It’s not pretty, and it’s long and it’s confused and it’s yet another piece of legislation we had to pass in order to find out what’s in it, but this is log rolling. This is how democracy in a continental nation gets things done. People aren’t going to like it. We had the politics of futile gesture that has become bipartisan.”
“Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz together at last. No one knows what they were trying to accomplish, but that doesn’t seem to matter to them. I do think this will change substantially when you get the new Congress here. Lame ducks, who’ve already been repudiated, leave, and you get the Republicans in charge and we’re going to see if they can’t implement the restoration of what they call regular order so we don’t run this government with sprawling pieces of legislation like this.”
WALLACE: “The final passage, 56 senators voted to keep the government funded. 32 Democrats, 24 Republicans. I mean, that’s the making of a bipartisan governing coalition.”
WILL: “Yes, and Americans who are clamoring for bipartisanship are going to get a good look at it and recoil in horror, probably, but that’s just the nature of democracy. The transaction costs of democracy are large, wasteful, messy…but it’s our system.”
WALLACE: “Do you think we’re going to see some bipartisan compromises, actual legislation, business getting done in Washington?”
WILL: “I do. The most important committee, the ways and means committee, is in the hands of a grown-up, Paul Ryan, and he will move it forward.”