Rep. [crscore]Raul Labrador[/crscore] says the the proposed bipartisan budget deal reached Tuesday has “nothing” good about it and blames [crscore]John Boehner[/crscore]. (RELATED: [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore] Says His ‘Knees Quiver’ Over Boehner-Obama Deal)
Appearing on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” with Chuck Todd on Tuesday, House Freedom Caucus member Raul Labrador argued, “There’s nothing about it that is good. It’s being sold by the Speaker of the House as a victory on entitlement reform. It is not a victory on entitlement reform.”
Labrador explained the deal “is actually shifting money… from Social Security and putting it into Social Security Disability. So we’re taking money away from people that are retiring, to give it to people that in a system that is bloated right now that we’re having problems with.”
“It’s actually giving the president a 15-month debt limit increase, without any positive changes to the entitlement programs or the way we’re doing business in Washington, D.C.,” claimed Labrador.
Todd asked Labrador to comment if there was any benefit to the deal providing “economic certainty for the rest of the year” and the congressman took the opportunity to blast the outgoing speaker of the House.
Labrador insisted, “It’s emblematic of the failed leadership of John Boehner for the last five years. He goes into a room, negotiates with three or four people, he comes to the House of Representatives on Monday evening and he tells us he’s going to put something on the floor at midnight on Monday and we have less than 48 hours to look at it and to actually debate it.”
“I think that’s why he needed to go,” claimed Labrador. “He’s a good man, who was not ready — whose time had come so he could move on.”
Regarding the prospects of the House Freedom Caucus’s disgruntlement with Boehner’s likely replacement [crscore]Paul Ryan[/crscore], Labrador said Ryan “needs to be able to justify how he’s voting, but I know he made a really strong statement this morning that he was opposed to the approach, he was opposed to the way the deal came about, he was opposed to the way it was negotiated, that under new leadership this was not going to happen.”
Labrador explained, “That’s what we have been asking for in the House Freedom Caucus, is that we need to make sure that we have a leader who understands that the process is broken here in Washington, D.C. and we need to change it.”
The Republican said that he is giving Ryan the benefit of the doubt “for now.”
