Chris Coons: “3 short weeks ago, many of us, many of my colleagues enthusiastically welcomed the budget agreement reached between the…”

“3 short weeks ago, many of us, many of my colleagues enthusiastically welcomed the budget agreement reached between the White House and congressional leaders of both parties. It was a budget agreement that put aside the short-term shutdown politics and gave us the opportunity to finally give American families and businesses the longer term economic certainty they need and deserve. It was a budget agreement that made balanced increases in both defense and nondefense discretionary spending--increases that were fully paid for. It was a budget agreement that was negotiated in good faith by Republican and Democratic leadership and the White House. It was a preview of what we might be able to accomplish if we put the politics of the moment, the partisan politics of the 2016 campaign, and other issues aside and actually focus on getting some things done. Barely 3 weeks later, barely 3 weeks since bipartisan majorities approved the agreement in both letter and spirit, here we are again staring down a potential government shutdown we all thought we had avoided because there was some insistence here--some colleagues who are insisting on poisoning the appropriations bills with policy riders which they know are opposed and which would undermine the ability of the Federal Government to function. Let's be clear. The policy riders we are discussing, the policy riders I am objecting to don't represent a good-faith policy debate.…”