Republican Sen. Bob Corker told CNBC on Wednesday that he voted with his head, "not his heart," for the deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff," and it was like "eating a you-know-what sandwich."
"When you are trying to save our great nation, when you're trying to deal with these massive deficits we have, you have to use your head and not your heart," Corker said on " Squawk Box ."
Corker called President Barack Obama a "spendaholic" who's failed to lead on the debt issue. "Washington is hurting our economy," he added. "This next quarter needs to be about one thing … entitlement reform."
In Wednesday's interview, Corker renewed his push for a bill he's introduced that calls for $1 trillion in entitlement reforms in exchange for $1 trillion in debt ceiling increases. "This dollar for dollar bill has some really tough measures to deal with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security."
While the compromise bill passed by the Senate and the House avoided the fiscal cliff, it did not address the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. A decision on increasing the nation's borrowing limit will need to be made in the next month or so. (Read more: Despite Cliff Deal: 'Nothing Really Has Been Fixed')
The president has said he won't negotiate with Republicans on the debt ceiling. "If you're not going to be part of the process, period — you have no role," Corker said. "You're taking yourself out of the game."
In 2011, Obama and Republicans went to war over the debt ceiling, which resulted in the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgrading the U.S. government's blue-chip AAA bond rating.
—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere; Follow him on Twitter @Matt_SquawkCNBC
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