Senator Carper Statement on Bipartisan Agreement to End Government Shutdown and Pay Our Nation’s Bills

WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) released the following statement on the bipartisan agreement to end the government shutdown and pay our nation’s bills:

“Today, my Senate colleagues and I did the right thing and came to a bipartisan agreement to reopen our government and pay our nation’s bills. I’m optimistic that the Senate and the House will quickly approve this measure and get it to the President later tonight. While I am relieved that that we finally convinced a handful of Republicans to stop the political brinksmanship and do our most basic duty — to fund our government and ensure the full faith and credit of our nation– this whole episode was both troubling and disappointing.  It’s unfortunate that these antics over the last few years – and especially the last few weeks – continue to undermine our nation’s economic wellbeing when Congress’ top priority should be to help continue our economic recovery.

“Despite my frustration with the events of the last few weeks, I remain an eternal optimist and I have no choice but look for the positive that can come from this latest showdown. In Chinese, the word for crisis represents both danger and opportunity. This agreement to resolve our current fiscal crisis provides us with another important opportunity – one that I sincerely hope my colleagues and the Administration will finally seize – to come together on a long-term budget agreement that puts us on a sustainable economic path. I believe such an agreement should do three things: address both spending and revenues in a balanced approach, rein in the costs of our entitlement programs in a way that preserves them for the future but doesn’t savage the poor or the elderly, and look for ways throughout the federal government where we can get better results for less money. We should work together — Republicans, Democrats and Independents — to end these last-minute, costly stop-gap spending measures once and for all and strengthen our economy.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the bipartisan compromise bill this evening. Once the Senate has approved the measure, the House of Representatives will vote on the measure and once approved, it will go to the President to be signed into law later this evening.