Tom Cole: “We need to maintain or increase, ideally, the budget at NIH.”

For anyone questioning this legislation, the facts are simple — it extends the government funding deadline to Dec. 4, denying any party the opportunity to manufacture leverage before elections.

It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid.

We want to take away the possibility of a shutdown between now and the election.

We're going to be in a crunch time.