In advance of last night’s House vote for a $1.1 trillion spending bill, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) threatened a government shutdown if the bill included a provision that would allow "too big to fail" banks to use consumer deposits to engage in risky derivatives trading.
Though they may share Warren’s distaste for corporate coddling, critics have pointed out that the senator had a very different perspective on shutdown campaigns when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) launched one last year:
You’d think that they believe that the government that functions best is a government that doesn’t function at all. So far, they haven’t ended government, but they have achieved the next best thing: shutting the government down. But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington, behind all that, there’s a reality. [The Federalist]
Watch Warren’s full 2013 remarks on shutdowns below. --Bonnie Kristian