On day 14 of the government shutdown and less than two days before the potential federal default, Senator Warner spoke to Virginia reporters about where negotiations stand in Congress.

“Virginia is Ground Zero for this crisis,” said Senator Warner. “We need to stop this madness and re-open the government. I was hopeful for bipartisan negotiations in the Senate but, again, a small group of House members have stopped negotiations… The clock is ticking.”

Senator Warner said that there were two lessons that could be learned from this debacle: “First, it ought to be unnacceptable that we now live in a political environment where one small group can hold hostage the U.S. government and economy. And [secondly] in order to stop this from continuing, we need to get our nation’s balance sheet in order and that includes working both on the entitlements side and the taxes side.”

Senator Warner closed by remarking, “You can’t keep punting the ball if you expect this economy to recover.”