Sen. Warner and Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA-02) joined Andrea Mitchell Reports today to urge Congress to come together and replace the devastating spending cuts required under sequestration with a long-term, bipartisan fix before returning home to their districts for August recess.

“We haven’t got a budget deal, and we don’t have appropriations bills for the next fiscal year,” Sen. Warner said. “Sequestration is dramatically hurting peoples’ lives all across the country but particularly in Virginia… We have to stay here and do more work.”

Both Sen. Warner and Rep. Rigell emphasized that the cuts, which have resulted in furloughs for many federal workers, are especially harmful to their constituents in the Commonwealth. Virginia has the nation’s largest proportion of federal employees and federal contractors.

Rep. Rigell agreed with Sen. Warner that Congress needs to work harder to find common ground. “Perhaps the reason that the Senator and I feel this way is our background in business,” he said.  “I really can’t process this idea of going back to my district for five weeks when our work’s not done… We need to pass these bills.”

Sen. Warner was also asked about President Obama’s meeting today with the Senate Democratic caucus. 

“[President Obama’s] message was that he wants us to have a plan on how to create more jobs and get this economy jumpstarted,” said Sen. Warner. “I think he laid out some interesting ideas about infrastructure investments, and I’ve actually got a number of Republicans I’m working with on that issue.” 

 “I guess I’m an eternal optimist,” he continued, “but I’m not sure we can get any of this done until we get some kind of bargain… Scott and I may not agree on everything, but Scott has shown that willingness to sit down and actually discuss these items, and candidly, there are a lot more people like that in both parties than most folks would think.”