Chris Coons: “here we are again. On Monday, September 30, 5 days from now at midnight, absent some agreement and cooperation between…”

“here we are again. On Monday, September 30, 5 days from now at midnight, absent some agreement and cooperation between the parties in the Chambers here in the Congress, the entire Federal Government will begin shutting down. Here we are again, another day, another fiscal crisis, another politically manufactured crisis-- another politically manufactured crisis that is threatening to tear at the economic fabric of our whole country. It would be hard to believe if it were not totally, completely believable. I have been in the Senate now just under 3 years but this is my third of these crises. I was actually up in the chair presiding that night back in 2011, when we narrowly averted a shutdown, just minutes before funding expired. I was here with all the other Senators on New Year's Eve this past year where we stopped just short of going over the fiscal cliff. Here we are again. From shutdown to default, from the debt ceiling to the fiscal cliff, now back to threatened shutdown and another default crisis weeks away and with, of course, unemployment still standing above 7 percent--7.3 percent. In my home State, Delawareans don't understand how we keep ending back up in this place. We have a saying in Delaware that our politics are dominated by what we call the Delaware way, which means doing what is right even when it is hard. It means coming together to make tough choices, Republicans and Democrats listening to each other and finding principled compromise.…”