{"id":30195,"date":"2016-02-02T07:04:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T11:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=30195"},"modified":"2016-02-02T07:04:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T11:04:39","slug":"10-reasons-that-goldman-sachs-loan-is-a-nightmare-for-ted-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=30195","title":{"rendered":"10 reasons that Goldman Sachs loan is a nightmare for Ted Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->By Jennifer Rubin<br \/>\nThe Washington Post<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/video\/c\/embed\/e16edf76-bad0-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This New York Times <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/01\/14\/us\/politics\/ted-cruz-wall-street-loan-senate-bid-2012.html?_r=0\">story<\/a> could not have come at a worse time for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who had already been knocked off-balance by Donald Trump, is falling in his must-win state of Iowa and is being attacked as a slick politician who won\u2019t level with voters:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"citation\"><p>As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSweetheart, I\u2019d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,\u201d he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.<\/p>\n<p>But the couple\u2019s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz\u2019s successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports.<\/p>\n<p>Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz \u2014 currently a leading contender for his party\u2019s presidential nomination \u2014 put \u201cpersonal funds\u201d totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million \u2014 \u201cwhich is all we had saved,\u201d as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a big problem for any candidate, but a bigger one for Cruz than most. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. He is still indebted to Goldman.<\/strong> (\u201cAs for the Goldman Sachs loan, it remains outstanding, though the balance has been reduced to between $50,000 and $100,000.\u201d) Goldman, among other things, employs hundreds of workers\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.myvisajobs.com\/Visa-Sponsor\/Goldman-Sachs\/209527.htm\">on H-1B visas<\/a>. Cruz used to advocate a huge increase in the number of H-1B visas, without, of course, saying he was on the hook to Goldman. Now, of course, Cruz wants to end H-1B visas. Maybe he should have taken out a loan from a bank that employed more Americans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. He didn\u2019t simply \u201cforget\u201d to file the disclosure; he made up a self-reverential story to go with it.<\/strong> \u201cLiquidate everything\u201d really meant \u201cget a honking-big loan from my wife\u2019s company.\u201d This will underscore <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/news_and_politics\/politics\/2016\/01\/the_definitive_timeline_of_what_ted_cruz_said_and_did_in_the_2013_immigration.html\">his slipperiness <\/a>on other issues, such as his stance on immigrant legalization. Can we take anything he says at face value?<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. He is going on stage tonight in a debate against several highly skilled candidates who don\u2019t like him to begin with.<\/strong> They are likely practicing their barbs as you read this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Trump is going to have a field day with this one, which is certainly a more solid reason than his birther hooey on which to disqualify Cruz.<\/strong> Cruz has been accusing Trump of embodying \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/right-turn\/wp\/2016\/01\/13\/tell-us-what-new-york-values-are-sen-cruz\/\">New York values<\/a>\u201d \u2014 whatever those are. But if hiding a big loan from a Wall Street firm tied to the housing crisis isn\u2019t the essence of \u201cNew York values,\u201d I am not sure what is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Cruz\u2019s campaign is built on the populist, anti-establishment narrative.<\/strong> That is how he won his Senate race in the first place and why it was a good reason for him to conceal the loan at a critical time in that race. (\u201cMr. Cruz, a conservative former Texas solicitor general, was campaigning as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington. It is a theme he has carried into his bid for the Republican nomination for president.\u201d) It would have highlighted his immense hypocrisy, in other words. He is still <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/4107636\/transcript-read-the-full-text-of-the-fourth-republican-debate-in-milwaukee\/\">running on the theme of \u00a0battling influence-peddling<\/a> and special favors for the rich (\u201c[T]he problem that underlies all of this is the cronyism and corruption of Washington\u201d). As a GOP Senate staffer put it, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that this guy can rail against crony capitalism when he is one of its biggest beneficiaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. It is hard to say this is an oversight.<\/strong> Cruz, he never tires of telling us, is a crack lawyer. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fec.gov\/pdf\/candgui.pdf\">The law<\/a> is crystal-clear (Chapter 6). Voters can surely draw the inference that he wanted to hide the loan. As the Times report noted, \u201cOther campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders.\u201d Saying this all got reported later when his seat was won is hardly an excuse. It\u2019s evidence that Cruz was hiding the ball when it mattered to his election.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. This is precisely the sort of slick, dishonest conduct he accuses professional politicians of undertaking.<\/strong> Recall his answer in <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/4107636\/transcript-read-the-full-text-of-the-fourth-republican-debate-in-milwaukee\/\">the debate in November<\/a> when asked about bailing out banks: \u201cThe truth is, the rich do great with big government. They get in bed with big government. The big banks get bigger and bigger and bigger under Dodd-Frank and community banks are going out of business. And, by the way, the consequence of that is small businesses can\u2019t get business loans, and it is that fundamental corruption that is why six of the 10 wealthiest counties in America are in and around Washington, D.C.\u201d But Cruz got his loan, thanks to the sort of special access he decries. This exchange was telling:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"citation\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">NEIL CAVUTO: . . .<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0I just want to be clear, if you don\u2019t mind, that millions of depositors would be on the line with that decision. And I just want to be clear. If it were to happen again, for whatever the reason, you would let it go, you would let a Bank of America go?\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">CRUZ:\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">So let me be clear. I would not bail them out, but instead of adjusting monetary policy according to whims and getting it wrong over and over again and causing booms and busts, what the Fed should be doing is, number one, keeping our money tied to a stable level of gold, and, number two, serving as a lender of last resort.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p4\">That\u2019s the essence of cronyism \u2014 Cruz gets his money when he is in a pinch, but ordinary employees, customers and shareholders will get no help from him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>8. Oh, it was not just Goldman.<\/strong> The Times report says that \u201cin the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose.\u201d Citibank was another Wall Street firm tied up in the housing disaster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>9. This all feeds into <em>Trump\u2019s<\/em> argument that <em>he<\/em> is not beholden to anyone, unlike greedy politicians.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>10. Cruz is going to spend more news cycles defending himself when he wanted to be firing up his troops and attacking others.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">The GOP is lucky to find this out now. Imagine what would happen if the party nominated someone with this to go up against the Clinton attack machine. It\u2019s one more reason not to nominate someone with such a thin public record who has never been thoroughly vetted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/right-turn\/wp\/2016\/01\/14\/10-reasons-that-goldman-sachs-loan-is-a-nightmare-for-ted-cruz\/\">http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/right-turn\/wp\/2016\/01\/14\/10-reasons-that-goldman-sachs-loan-is-a-nightmare-for-ted-cruz\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}