>
Article snippet: Frustrated Senate Republicans lashed out at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) early Friday for refusing to speed up a budget deal and forcing a temporary government shutdown. GOP senators, from leadership to rank-and-file, accused the libertarian-leaning lawmaker of wasting the chamber's time by delaying an agreement that ultimately passed in the early hours of Friday morning. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, warned Paul during a heated back-and-forth on the Senate floor that he would be to blame for shutting down the government. "I don't know why we are basically burning time here while the senator from Kentucky and others are sitting in the cloakroom wasting everybody's time and inconveniencing the staff," he said. Cornyn added that Paul, who rejected several attempts by Republicans to move up the budget debate, "will effectively shut down the federal government for no real reason." Paul leveraged the Senate's rules to delay an initial vote on the two-year budget deal until nearly 1 a.m. on Friday as he tried to get a vote on his amendment to keep spending caps in place. Congress needed to pass the budget deal, which also includes a stopgap funding bill, by midnight in order to avoid a government shutdown. But under Senate rules, any individual senator was able to drag out the fight. Cornyn said that Paul's tactics were "grossly irresponsible" and GOP leadership wouldn't "reward bad behavior." Sen. MORE (D-Del.). Several GOP senators tried to ... Link to the full article to read more