John B. Breaux: “I am not for Joe Camel, but I am for this budget agreement. I think that the question before the Senate today is, are we…”

“I am not for Joe Camel, but I am for this budget agreement. I think that the question before the Senate today is, are we willing to run the risk of unraveling an agreement that has been entered into by Republican Members working in good faith with Democratic Members working in good faith with this administration to try to do something that we have not been able to do for many years? We shut the Government down in the last Congress because we could not agree on a budget. You talk about affecting children. When you shut down all the services of the Government, you affect young people, you affect children, you affect senior citizens, and you affect every aspect of our society. We did that in the last Congress because we could not come together and agree on a budget that was balanced in terms not only of spending but of how we spend the money that we are allocated to spend. We have a historical agreement in front of us that breaks that pattern of not being able to work together, by coming together and saying, yes, there are Democratic priorities and, yes, there are Republican priorities, and both sides have to give.”