Senator John McCain and the mainstream media, are attacking Senator Ted Cruz (and Senators Lee, Paul, and Rubio) for objecting to going to conference on the budget resolution. Cruz’s objection is simple: he wants a public promise from the Democrats that they won’t use what is called “reconciliation” to raise the debt ceiling. Reconciliation is a special procedure that requires only 50 votes, not 60, to pass an increase in the debt ceiling (or tax increases for that matter).

John McCain has basically dismissed Cruz’s legitimate concern and said: “how come we don’t trust the Republicans in the House to prevent this from occurring?”

Senator McCain, let me explain why we don’t trust the Republicans. It’s called the Budget Control Act of 2011. It raised the debt ceiling by trillions without structural reforms to entitlements and was supported by 174 Republicans in the House and 28 Republicans in the Senate. Including you.

Oh, and by the way – reconciliation has been used four times before to raise the debt ceiling, including the Bush tax hike in 1990 and the Clinton tax hike in 1993.

Count the Club for Growth in the pro-Cruz/Lee/Paul/Rubio camp. Instead of giving away our leverage to extract real reform from the Democrats and President Obama, we should demand a public promise not to use the budget process for a back-door debt limit increase. The big spenders in both parties would like to give away the store. We can’t let them.

PS – I’m on twitter now at @ChrisChocola. You can follow me there or check out @Club4Growth for news from the Club.