Sunday, September 29, 2013

Green Eggs and Ham: Are you serious Cruz?

On Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor for the debate over Obamacare, Senator Ted Cruz decided to stall a vote on the bill with a filibuster that entailed a 21 hour long “talk-a-thon” where he talked about a million random things. At one point he decided to talk about the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and read it out loud on the floor for his daughters. This was just another tactic to waist more time but as Senator Schumer pointed out Cruz completely missed the point of the book making democrats shake their heads in disapproval.

                On Wednesday, Senator Chuck Schumer responded to Cruz’s 21 hour marathon speech saying that he was appalled that out of all books Cruz picked Green Eggs and Ham to drag out his debate. Cruz said that this book was actually one of his favorites but it seems unlikely that he read the book as Schumer went on to say that Cruz missed the point of the book which doesn’t connect with his ideas about Obamacare at all and if he actually got the moral of the story he might think differently about Obamacare.

"Green Eggs and Ham has a moral: Don't criticize something, don't reject something, until you actually try it. Sam said he didn't like green eggs and ham for a long time. And then when he finally tried it, he liked it… Maybe Ted Cruz, once Obamacare occurred, might actually like it…I don't know if he read it."1
It seems like from the way Schumer responded, he was sort of mocking Senator Cruz for his lack of knowledge on the book. With a smirk on his face, it was almost too easy for Schumer to counter. As of right now Republicans say that a government shutdown can be avoided if democrats come to a compromise with some of the cut downs to the Obamacare law but it seems that the tactics the republicans are using, this filibuster being one of them, aren’t really working in their favor. As we get closer to the deadline, republicans are pushing more negotiations to the bill but as Senator Schumer has said time and time again, “until they send us a clean bill, we’re going to table whatever else they send us.”2

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