On the recordDecember 6, 2012
Let me be the first to congratulate my two colleagues from Delaware on Delaware Day. Have a happy Delaware Day. We have a lot of great things in Colorado, but I am not going to try to outcompete you on beaches this afternoon. We don't have a lot of those. I do think it puts me in mind of something, and that is our constitution. Delaware, as Senator Coons mentioned, was the first State to ratify the Constitution of this great country. My State didn't become a State until nearly a century later. We are the Centennial State as a result of that. That constitution that enabled generation upon generation of Americans had a preamble which said: to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. It is important in these days of these budget discussions to remind ourselves they didn't stop with themselves. The document doesn't stop with ourselves. It is about ourselves and our posterity. That is what we are talking about here when we are involved in this budget discussion. These aren't decisions that are about ourselves, these are decisions that are about the next generation of Americans and the generation after that. And it is time for us to do our job. It is time for us to walk back from this fiscal cliff and come up with a comprehensive plan. We know what the outlines of that are today, and we need to stop playing political games in this holiday season and get this work done, not for ourselves but for our posterity. ____________________
