Dan Kildee: “It was just about a year ago right now that I and 84 other new Members of Congress arrived in Washington to begin our…”

“It was just about a year ago right now that I and 84 other new Members of Congress arrived in Washington to begin our orientation in the process of joining this body; and both Democrats and Republicans of that class of 2012, though we come from different perspectives and different districts, we received a pretty strong message from the electorate in 2012. It was the same message that I think many of us heard when we were back home last week for our Thanksgiving break. The message was: set aside the hyper-partisanship and get about the business of attending to the work of the American people. So now as we face yet another set of self-inflicted wounds, political deadlines that have been set, we hear some rumblings that we may not do what we committed to do just a few weeks ago, and that is, put together a real budget that is a reflection of the values, the interests, and the needs of the American people. We have already gone through one government shutdown just this last year which cost the American economy $24 billion. We cannot afford to let that happen again, and we cannot afford another short-term deal that does not provide the stability and the certainty that the private sector needs in order to make the kinds of investments that will put the American people back to work and get our economy moving again. I am glad that there finally was agreement to go to conference on a budget, and many of us took that agreement at face value.…”