Bill Nelson: “I, like many of my colleagues, have just flown in our Nation's airways, going through a fairly crowded airport in…”

“I, like many of my colleagues, have just flown in our Nation's airways, going through a fairly crowded airport in Florida, coming into a crowded airport here in Washington, and in 30 days those TSA lines are going to get longer. For the international flights, I and others have worked very hard to get additional customs agents to cut the time it takes to process our international visitors. In airports such as Miami and Orlando where there is quite a bit of international traffic, getting those additional customs folks has meant a great deal because we even had some airlines that would come in, for example, to Orlando, and they would have to keep the international passengers on the airplane for upwards of an hour before they could get off the airplane so that there was room, with the personnel available. Well, you see where I am going, because all of that is going to change unless--as the Good Book says, come, let us reason together. Unless our sharply divided politics--be it partisan, be it ideological--unless we can come together and reach consensus to stop this ridiculous thing that went into effect last Friday called the sequester, which was never intended to go into effect, but because of the inability of the parties to come together, in fact, it is in effect, and it is cutting, in an indiscriminate way, like a meat cleaver across the board.…”