Mark Warner, Tim Kaine urge Senate Republicans to cooperate on federal budget

Senate Republicans continue to block the appointment of budget conferees to work on negotiations with the House, and Democrats – including Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine – are trying to push through the logjam.

Warner made a motion on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday asking for unanimous consent to move the Senate’s budget legislation to conference with the House. His request was blocked by an objection from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.).

Warner said McConnell’s objection was “not a surprise — but it was extremely disappointing.”

“I can only speak at this point from folks from Virginia – but no single other issue is as overriding, I hear as I travel across Virginia, and I would imagine most of my colleagues travel across their states – is that at the end of the day Americans, Virginians want us to work together and get this issue solved. We’ve seen over the last two and a half years, as we’ve lurched from manufactured budget crisis to budget crisis, the effects this has had on the stock market, on job creation, and our overall economic recovery. Well, we have a chance to put this behind us,” Warner said.

Kaine, a member of the Senate Budget committee, was critical of Republicans for continued efforts to “block the nation from coming up with a budget.”

“This is an abuse of rules and it is directly contrary to the members’ claims now for years they wanted to pass a budget. This is not just a matter of budget, it’s not just a matter of numbers on a page. This is hurting our economy,” Kaine said.