Ted Cruz

I appreciate the efforts of my friend from Washington to defend the prerogative of the Republican House. What I would suggest is that each of us has a responsibility to our States.

The vote would be a 51-vote threshold, which would mean-- and my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle have been very explicit that in their collective judgment the debt ceiling should be raised with no conditions. Given that----

What I expect is that each of us is obliged to carry out our responsibility to defend the interests of our States. I have 26 million Texans who I am not willing to go to and say, if they ask me: Why did you go along with the procedural…

If we went to a conference committee and it came back on reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling by $10 trillion, then under reconciliation rules, 51 Senators--only the Democrats--could vote to do so, and the Republicans would be utterly…

I am happy to yield as soon as I finish this point. I will be happy to yield after that.

I thank my friend from California, but I have been quite vocal that both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to getting us in this mess, and we need leadership from both parties to turn it around. I would note in the question the…

I thank my friend from California for that question. She may well be right, that one of the reasons spending is out of control is that we no longer have Bill Clinton as President and a Republican Congress. Instead we have President Obama…

Can we have a commitment from you... to target waste, fraud, and abuse, to target redundancy, to target ways to trim the fat and tighten the belt?

I will certainly accept as a friendly amendment to work on 10 instead of 3.

Quite a few of us have been concerned that the administration... has been looking for ways to implement those cuts that are visible and painful.

We may see even further budgetary cuts at some point in the future.

California has already been able to realize a 25 percent cost and time savings as a result of the NEPA delegation.

In my judgment, the sequestration funding levels are quite likely to continue.

My question to the Senator is, does he see how any Senator of good faith, given these facts, could oppose this resolution?

As you know, the FAA is currently under a moratorium on issuing regulations regarding certain aspects of commercial spaceflight.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank each of the witnesses who testified today for your expertise and your illuminating comments.

The FAA does, in fact, provide regulations for suborbital flight today, but they are regulations to protect the public.

I think that things have not materialized as quickly as perhaps Congress contemplated at the time.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity for us to have this hearing and to get to know more about the exciting potential for advancing our space-related knowledge and achievement by taking advantage of the competitive forces and…

This is an experimental, high-risk situation, and the spaceflight participants... need to be fully informed of the risks.

One thing you have referred to several times is potential opportunities for mining.

One of the important roles, I think, that this subcommittee can play is helping NASA articulate the benefits of the space program to our Nation.

We have conceptually said 2030s sometime is the appropriate time for Mars, but we can only do that with sufficient funding and moving forward.

It is critical that the United States ensure its continued leadership in space.

It strikes me that Senator Graham raised serious constitutional questions about the Article II role of the Commander in Chief and the appropriate ability of this Congress to restrict the decisions of the Commander in Chief directing…