Rep. Dave Brat, the Tea Party-aligned Republican who unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia last year, attacked congressional leadership of both parties last week, claiming that they were encouraging the “little drama” about Planned Parenthood defunding in order to create a “shiny object” to distract from their attempt to jettison the budget caps put in place by sequestration.
“Everyone’s trying to act like it’s this shiny object at budget time with Planned Parenthood or something,” Brat told Virginia talk radio host John Fredericks last Thursday, the day before House Speaker John Boehner announced his retirement. “That’s got very little to do with it.”
“The key question for the press right now is who is in charge of the United States budget?” he said.
He offered one possibility: “[Maryland Democratic Sen.] Barbara Mikulski is in that room, we know that, she is encouraging all this Planned Parenthood drama and all this kind of thing. But those issues are not front and central in the budget process, and we should have debated them in regular order as we were promised. And so I just encourage folks, don’t get lost in this Planned Parenthood shiny object thing, look at what’s really going on, both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats, want to break the budget caps. That’s what this is all about.”
“Is this whole Planned Parenthood thing just like a ruse to get everybody’s eye off the ball?” Fredericks asked.
“Yeah, yes, yes!” Brat answered. “The budget is $3.5 trillion, that is the main game in town, that’s where the power is, that’s where the money is. Think ‘House of Cards.’ What’s it about? Is it about Planned Parenthood or is it about massive power in a $3.5 trillion budget? I mean, anyone knows the answer to that.
“So at the end of the day, the press all unites, blames a few conservatives for this that or the other thing. It has nothing to do with it. This thing has been orchestrated for over a year, over three or four months ago, Hal Rogers, the head of Approps, in quotes said ‘we need more flexibility up here,’ that means we need more spending. There was no videos back then, there was no Planned Parenthood debate back then, the entire budget set-up has been put in play by leadership, and so they need to get us out of it, they don’t get to blame somebody at the end of the day over some little drama.”
