June 7th, 2012

We didn’t get the memo that you’re supposed to take election years off.”|news_article|News Article|933DC6E3-FEE1-4968-A31C-D9A1CD4C5DF9| |
Senator Warner and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday to discuss the need for bipartisan and comprehensive deficit reduction legislation in Congress.

“There would be nothing that we could do more to jump start our economy and get the $2 trillion in private sector capital off the sidelines investing,” said Senator Warner told host Candy Crowley.

“It would be better to do some of that now, pick up the Simpson-Bowles language or various other Gang of Six or 12 or so forth. I would hope that might occur,” Senator Lugar said. “And I think the American people would be more relieved and their thoughts about the Congress certainly would be much better.”

The Senators also discussed the ongoing crisis in Syria. Senator Lugar urged the creation of safe zones for Syrian civilians, and Senator Warner urged continued pressure on President Bashar al-Assad. However, Senator Warner cautioned that the Syria situation is not the same as the recent Libyan uprisings.

“We don’t really know who makes up the Syrian opposition,” the Senator said. “[This is] very different than the situation in Libya.”

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Senator Warner promoted bipartisan Startup Act 2.0 legislation he is sponsoring on CNN’s John King last night. Startup aims to jumpstart job creation by helping American entrepreneurs win the global competition for talent. Of course, the Senator could not pass up an opportunity to talk about his continuing efforts to craft comprehensive, bipartisan agreement on the deficit.

“The Senators sponsoring this bill – we call it Startup 2.0 – are all new guys, and we didn’t get the memo that you’re supposed to take election years off,” Senator Warner said. “This bill isn’t going to solve all the problems, but it really goes and looks at where job creation has taken place in the last 20 years.”

“The biggest thing of all we could that we could do for job creation is put in place a real deficit reduction plan that will generate additional revenues and that will do entitlement reforms that we need.”