Michael Bennet: “I came to the floor the other night to talk about what I had learned in 2 years of townhall meetings in Colorado…”

“I came to the floor the other night to talk about what I had learned in 2 years of townhall meetings in Colorado regarding our deficit and regarding our debt. What I said the other night was that people in our State, whether in red parts of the State or blue parts of the State, have a commonsense way of approaching this, and they have a three-part test they want to apply. The first test is they want to make sure we actually come up with something that materially addresses the problem we face. They are tired of gimmicks. They are tired of tricks. They want us to sort this out. They know it will not be fixed overnight, but they want us to get started on it. The second test is that we are all in it together. They are tired of the us-against-them conversation that happens in Washington. They are tired of hearing that one person's ox is going to be gored or one group of people's ox is going to be gored and everyone else will be left alone. Everybody wants to contribute to solving this problem. The third test is they want it to be bipartisan. Because, frankly, they do not have confidence in either party on this issue and they want to see us working together. That is it. We should be working toward that as a Senate and as a House. We should be having a serious conversation about how not to leave our children stuck with a bill of $15 trillion in debt and a $1.5 trillion deficit. I feel that keenly, as the father of three little girls myself.…”