On the recordJanuary 19, 2018
let me start by agreeing with the Senator from Utah that we should extend the Children's Health Insurance Program. We should do it for 6 years. I want to commend the Senator from Utah for his work in creating the CHIP program, along with Senator Kennedy. It is good work, and we need to extend it. We also have an obligation as Senators, on a bipartisan basis, to get together and put together a budget for the United States of America. We are now 4 months into the current fiscal year, and we do not have a budget that provides the resources necessary for the Department of Defense. We do not have a budget that provides resources to fight the opioid epidemic. There has been a lot of talk here in the U.S. Senate about fighting the opioid epidemic, but we have no resources to do that. We need a budget to get that done. So, yes, we should extend the Children's Health Insurance Program. We need to do that. But we also need to do our job--which we should have done back on October 1, the first day of this fiscal year--and actually adopt a bipartisan budget for the United States of America. The tragedy right now is that at midnight tonight the government will shut down unless the Senate Republican leadership comes to its senses and supports a bipartisan budget agreement--a bipartisan agreement, which is really in plain sight right here in the U.S. Senate.…
