Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – “I never thought shutting down the government was a good idea,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told the Boston Herald Radio Thursady afternoon, saying he was never in favor of shutting down the government as a way to fight Obamacare.
“And I’ve always thought that really if you want to talk about Obamacare, talk about how bad it is and how awful it’s going to be … how it’s going to cause unemployment and loss of hours at work and cause the expense of insurance to go up.
“That’s all good. But attaching it to shutting down the government, I didn’t think was a good idea.” said Sen. Paul on the Michael Graham Show.
Senate leaders announced a last-minute agreement Wednesday night that narrowly averted a looming Treasury default and reopened the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown. Congress raced to pass the measure by day’s end.
Congressional Democrats in both the House and Senate, as well as Obama Administration officials and the president himself, were forced to sit back and watch as efforts by House GOP leaders to tie the Debt Ceiling debate to an 
Obamacare fight collapsed in disarray.
McConnell said that with the Senate accord, Republicans had sealed a deal to have spending in one area of the budget decline for two years in a row, adding, “We’re not going back.”
One prominent Tea Party lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would oppose the plan, but would not seek to delay its passage.
That was a key concession that signaled a strong possibility that both houses could act by day’s end. That, in turn, would allow President Obama to sign the bill into law ahead of tomorrow’s deadline that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had set for action to raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit.
The Dow Jones industrial average soared on the news that the threat of default was fading.
