Dan Coats: “yesterday the President indicated that we need to pivot back to the fiscal issues facing this country and facing…”

“yesterday the President indicated that we need to pivot back to the fiscal issues facing this country and facing Congress. This comes after a year with little sense of urgency on perhaps the most pressing and challenging domestic issue before us. Of course, issues such as Syria and foreign policy have to be addressed, but we have had a year in this Congress to address our fiscal issues knowing we were moving toward a drop-dead date fiscally of September 30, and here we are now, more than halfway through September, just beginning to take up these issues that will direct the fiscal future of this country. The clock is ticking away, and we have spent little time preparing for what is coming. But here we are once again careening toward another fiscal cliff. The American people are sick and tired of this. I think the Senate and the Congress are sick and tired of doing this. Yet we find ourselves once again careening up against a deadline to provide funding to keep our economy moving forward and to keep our government providing essential services. Clearly, we could all argue there are a number of things that don't need to be funded or can be postponed, but there are essential functions of the Federal Government that can't be handled any other way and must be funded. National security is one of those top priorities, along with homeland security.…”