Sen. Warner spoke with WRVA Richmond Radio’s Jimmy Barrett this morning about the effects of broad spending cuts and employee furloughs mandated by the sequester and Congress’ continuing failure to get in front of the looming budget crisis. Sen. Warner has been sharing letters and emails from Virginians who work for the federal government – many of whom are now experiencing one furlough day each workweek.

“It’s not like you get a 20% discount on your car payment, day care, or rent,” Sen. Warner said.  “What drives me crazy as a business guy is that some of these cuts are actually going to cost the taxpayer more money, because, for example, we start, then cancel research studies. So we’ll have to flush the research after years of work.  We have government contractors who don’t know whether they can continue their work; it’s start, stop, start stop. That costs money as well.” 

“We’re going to have to change the business plan we have now,” he continued,  “which basically says, let’s keep cutting things like defense, education, and research and development, which candidly are now already at the lowest levels of spending since Dwight Eisenhower.”

Sen. Warner also discussed the urgent need for substantive, comprehensive budget negotiations between the two parties. Later this year, Congress will face deadlines on whether to continue the sequester, how to fund next year’s federal budget, and raising the debt limit.

“What I’m hoping is we can roll all of these into one,” he told Jimmy Barrett.  “Why have one budget showdown in December, and then another right around the holidays?” 

“We need to have Democrats give on entitlement reforms, and Republicans give on revenue,” Sen. Warner said. “This is a very doable deal – I bet that if I could just show them the numbers, 90% of your audience, even some of the more conservative members, would say ‘yeah, we need to do a little bit of all of this.”