CBS host grills Cornyn: It's like shutting down government and demanding a 'cure for cancer'

CBS News host Bob Schieffer on Sunday told Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that his party's strategy of trying to defund President Barack Obama's health care reform law was like shutting down the government and demanding a "cure for cancer."

"This all started because Ted Cruz, your colleague from Texas in the Senate, didn't like Obamacare," Schieffer noted. "Which is almost like, you know, I'm going to throw a brick through your window unless you give me $20."

Of course, Cornyn insisted that he looked at the government shutdown "a little different way" because of "what Obamacare is doing to our economy."

"That's beside the point," Schieffer interrupted. "The law has been passed. Why not keep the government running and then everybody can sit down and decide what they want to do about it?"

The Texas senator argued that "this government would still be up and running" if the president and Democrats agreed to gut the Affordable Care Act by exempting Americans from the individual mandate to buy insurance, the core mechanism which allows the law to function.

"Senator, isn’t there something wrong when you say I won’t fund the government unless I can attach my personal wish list to the legislation every time we vote?" Schieffer pressed. "I’d love to see the government find a cause -- cure for cancer, but I don’t think you can say, I’m not going to pass any funds for the rest of the government until [the National Institutes of Health] finds a cure for cancer."

"I mean, isn’t that just kind of the same thing here?"

Watch the video below from CBS' Face the Nation, broadcast Oct. 6, 2013.

(h/t: Think Progress)