By , Becket Adams
Published December 20, 2015
Americans have little faith in Congress' ability to get anything done, and for that, people should thank lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, according to former Sen. Tom Coburn.
"I call it the 'Cruz effect,'" the former Oklahoma senator said Thursday in an interview with Sirius XM host Pete Dominick. "Look, when you tell people you can accomplish something that you can't, for example, shutting down the government over the Affordable Care Act ..."
"When, in fact, you promise people in your speeches and your talk that we can do this ... we're going get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and all we have to do is shut down the government. Well, that's one thing to tell them that," Coburn said. "It's a whole other thing to be able to accomplish that, and build a coalition that once you shut it, that it doesn't get opened up 'till you win."
Cruz is one of several Republicans running for president. He currently polls behind former Hewlett-Packard CEO Cary Fiorina, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Donald Trump, according to RealClearPolitics.
"So what happens to that is, once you've told people that, and you've put your finger — 'everybody that doesn't believe exactly like I believe, you're not a patriot, you don't care about the country' — what you do is you create greater disappointment in the hinterlands, because you gave them a false hope, knowing that you couldn't accomplish it, but it was about yelling, and screaming, and waving the flag," Coburn said.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coburn-blames-cruz-effect-for-disappointment-in-congress