Washington Post - Ted Cruz to Senate Republicans: We Must "Earn the Mandate we Were Given'

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By Jose A. Delreal

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) warned his fellow Republicans Monday that the new Senate majority needs to "earn the mandate we've been given" and accused his colleagues on Capitol Hill -- including members of his own party -- of pandering to corporate interests.

"We need to demonstrate that we believe the words we said on the campaign trail," Cruz said during a policy summit Monday organized by Heritage Action. "The biggest divide in America is not between Republicans and Democrats, it's between career politicians and the American people."

Cruz told audience members that Republicans would have to embrace a "big, bold, positive agenda" that emphasizes economic growth and job creation for working Americans, rather than feeding a "culture of corruption" and representing corporate interests. The freshman Texas senator also called-out members of his party for passing a $1 trillion spending bill in December that he says was "a giant pile of corporate welfare."

"The election was not an embrace of Republicans. The election was not an embrace of one party. Instead the election, in my view, was the voters roundly repudiating the path we're on," he said."Let's stand up and lead. Let's lead with a big, bold positive agenda that says to the American people, 'You had a referendum and you rejected the Obama agenda. There is a better way.' That's our opportunity."

The tea party favorite struck a heavily populist tone while hitting the Obama administration on its economic policy.

"If you're a single mom trying to pay the bills and the cost of everything you're spending keeps going up and up and up and up, and the one thing that doesn't move is your paycheck every two weeks, you are feeling the consequence of Washington's easy money policies," he said.

While Cruz's remarks primarily focused on economic opportunity in the United States, he also spoke about various national security concerns and criticized the administration's fight against the Islamic State and its diplomatic policy toward Iran.

"You cannot win a war against radical Islamic terrorists with an administration that is unwilling to utter the words, "radical Islamic terrorists. These were not a bunch of tick-tock Presbyterians" said Cruz.

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