[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12298-12300]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TOUGH FISCAL CHOICES

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the tough 
fiscal choices this body, this government, and our President now face. 
But before I say anything else, I wish to start off with a profound 
apology. I want to apologize to every West Virginian and all Americans 
for the terrible process they have been made to endure and witness. 
With 5 days before the August 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, 
this government faces yet another crisis of its own making. Yet it is 
not we who pay the price for our failures to govern, it is the American 
people. To the tens of millions of American families who work hard to 
take care of their families, I can only imagine the anger and disgust 
they have at witnessing a broken government and a President and Members 
of Congress who can't seem to even agree sometimes on what day it is, 
let alone on how to solve the Nation's debt crisis.
  The American people deserve better.
  Some will say Washington is broken and that is the best we can do, 
but I do not believe that for one moment. Washington may be broken, but 
it will not break me, and you should not let it break you either. I 
came to fix things, not to make things worse. I came to solve problems, 
not to ignore them, and I came to worry about the next generation, not 
my next election.
  I, for one, am willing to make the tough and painful decisions that 
will improve the lives of every West Virginian and all Americans for 
generations to come, regardless of what it means for my party or for 
the next election, and I know I am not alone.
  After our beloved Senator Byrd passed away, I chose to run for the 
Senate for one simple reason: I saw the great challenges our Nation 
faced: exploding debts and deficits, our Nation's energy dependence, 
costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a painful jobs and economic 
crisis, and I wanted to help make things better by bringing a little 
common sense to Washington. I knew we had to focus on rebuilding 
America and doing so meant making hard, politically difficult choices.
  Some of my colleagues often remind me that fixing problems as complex 
as our debt crisis isn't easy. But with all due respect, it seems we 
make it harder than it needs to be. My friends, it doesn't need to be 
this way.
  I did not come to Washington with the illusion that I could reinvent 
the wheel, but I did come to help balance the wheels and make the car 
run a little smoother.
  Months ago, when I said I would not vote to raise the debt ceiling 
without a long-term fix, I thought this Congress and our President 
would be able to tackle the issue head-on and have it done by now. As I 
made clear on that day, the choices we make to address our debt now 
will determine whether the vital programs we all deeply care about, 
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our veterans programs, education 
for our children, Head Start, are there for those in need and for the 
decades to come. However, instead of coming together months ago to 
focus and deal with the gravity of our debt, we delayed, and we 
continue to delegate.
  While I will never question someone's motivations or their heart, we 
all have a right to question the strategies of our leaders and 
colleagues, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, because these 
strategies have once again

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led us to a crisis and the brink of a disaster. At a minimum, this 
entire process has, once again, fed a growing public cynicism that is 
corrosive to the very fabric of our government, and we all bear the 
responsibility for that.
  I truly believe we can do better. I know this to be true because we 
proved it in West Virginia.
  When I first became Governor of the great State of West Virginia, our 
State faced similar grave fiscal concerns. After facing dismal credit 
ratings for far too long and a dark fiscal future, some thought our 
State's best days were behind us. But after confronting our fiscal 
challenges head-on in West Virginia, even during the deepest recession 
in our lifetimes, we are one of the few States in the Nation that has 
had its credit rating upgraded the last 3 years in a row, and we had 
surpluses for 6 years in a row during the toughest times. We did this 
in West Virginia by cutting spending but not cutting the vital programs 
or services we hold so dear. We did this not by raising tax rates but 
by ensuring that everyone paid their fair share in our State. We did 
this by tackling waste, fraud, and abuse so as to ensure that we took 
care of those most in need, not those bent on greed. By doing this, we 
helped to restore confidence to the economy of our State, and that is a 
factor we can't overestimate.
  West Virginia may be a small State, but these are commonsense 
solutions I strongly believe can apply right here.
  I did not blame these fiscal challenges we had in our State on the 
mistakes made by past Governors or legislators, whether they were 
Democrats or Republicans. I reached out to all members of our 
legislature, whether they were on the front row or the so-called back 
row, and I met with them and anyone who had an idea on how we best 
could solve our fiscal problems. It required sacrifice, it required 
patience, and it required trust and respect. Can anyone honestly say 
that with all that has taken place here? In fact, if we turn on cable 
news right now, we will see exactly where this broken process stands. 
We as Democrats sometimes are rushing out to attack our colleagues, the 
Republicans, and the Republicans are rushing out to attack us, the 
Democrats.
  We are better than this, and for the sake of this Nation's future we 
must do better. I owe it to all West Virginians and we all owe it to 
this great Nation to do much better than we have. From time to time, we 
should remind ourselves we took an oath to do just that.
  As idealistic as it may sound, I implore this great body, each 
Member, the leaders of both bodies, the President, the two parties, and 
especially the political committees, to put away their political knives 
and swords and let us do something that has become rare in Washington: 
Put aside the political attacks for a few months and actually work 
together, openly, honestly, with respect for our profound differences, 
and build a trust that will fix the big problems we face as a nation.
  The stakes are too high to do anything else. Our Nation faces not 
only a threat of default but of a downgrade. The credit rating 
agencies, such as Standard & Poor's, have made it clear that the United 
States needs to cut nearly $4 trillion over the next decade or they 
will lose the confidence in our long-term ability to pay our bills.
  Yet in my estimation, neither of the two plans that are currently 
proposed by both Republican and Democratic leadership comes close to 
preventing our Nation from being downgraded or actually solving the 
debt crisis we face. Each falls far short, whether it is in time or 
dollars.
  The truth is, both of the plans being discussed and that the Senate 
may consider, one offered by the leader of the Republican Party, 
Speaker John Boehner, and the other offered by the leader of our 
Chamber and my party, Senator Reid, do not solve the Nation's long-term 
fiscal problems as presented.
  Make no mistake, I have the utmost respect for both of these fine 
public servants. Both find themselves in difficult positions, and I 
know they are trying their best to do what is right. I understand the 
desire to prevent our Nation's default. But what we have before us are 
effectively a short-term fix and a shorter term fix. Either one might 
prevent a default, which is a good thing, but neither may prevent a 
credit downgrade, which is a terrible thing.
  To me, it doesn't matter if it is a Republican proposal or a 
Democratic proposal, but including $1.2 trillion in savings from the 
wars we should not be fighting as savings doesn't make sense. Saying we 
will save money that we haven't even budgeted or spent is akin to 
saying that because your family bought a $20,000 car instead of a 
$50,000 car, you saved $30,000. It is even worse when we consider we 
couldn't afford to buy any car in the first place. Most of the American 
people understand that, and I know in West Virginia they do.
  As for Speaker Boehner's plan, his was supposed to save $1.2 
trillion, but the Congressional Budget Office just took a look and 
determined it would save only $917 billion. So instead of fixing our 
problem, it kicks the can down the road to 2012, which will be an 
election year. If we think this process is ugly now, we ain't seen 
anything yet.
  As these two proposals currently stand, I could not, in good 
conscience, support either one of them unless they include a pathway 
for a long-term debt fix. While it is true our Nation will suffer if we 
only enact a short-term deal, we will suffer much more if we fail to 
fix our greater fiscal problems.
  We must solve our Nation's problems now, not in 2012 and certainly 
not in 2013. This is not just my opinion. As many rating agencies have 
warned and economists have predicted, every year that goes by, the 
options on how to fix our looming debt crisis will become worse and 
worse.
  If we are being honest, neither of these proposals, as they stand 
today, can prevent a credit rating agency's downgrade, an event that 
would be as catastrophic or maybe even worse than default because I, 
personally, know a government's climb back from a low credit rating is 
extremely long and painful.
  To be clear, a downgrade in our credit worthiness could lead to 
selloff of stocks, Treasury securities, and U.S. dollars. Gold prices 
could rise even higher, and interest rates could increase across the 
board, which would not only have a devastating impact on consumers, 
small businesses, and local governments but would make the price of 
financing our Nation's debt even more costly. At a minimum, the shock 
to our Nation's confidence from our first-ever downgrade could prove 
more costly than we could even fathom.
  We can't let this happen. For the sake of our Nation's future, we 
must come to a compromise that acknowledges that a long-term debt fix 
is needed and our spending is out of control and that raising tax 
rates, whether it is the rich, the middle class, and most especially 
even the poor, will not cure our spending problems.
  But we must also come to a compromise that acknowledges that tax 
reform is not the same as raising taxes and that there is something 
morally wrong when a large corporation, such as G.E., pays zero in 
Federal taxes while small businesses or a middle-class family pays 
more.
  We must also come to a compromise that finally acknowledges we simply 
can't fight three wars for years to come while we cut services here at 
home and we choose to keep taxes low. I have said this before, but it 
is so important. If I have to choose between rebuilding America and 
rebuilding Afghanistan, I choose America.
  So with the clock ticking toward default, what can we do?
  As part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling, I would respectfully 
encourage leaders in the Senate and the House and our President to find 
common ground by committing to a guaranteed vote on a long-term fix; 
otherwise, as I said months ago, I simply cannot support a short-term 
deal that is just a little better than the shorter term deal.
  With all due respect to my colleagues, I will not look West 
Virginians in the eye and say: Don't worry, all is good; I saved myself 
for the 2012 election, but you are on your own.
  A vote on such a long-term debt fix, I would hope, could come within 
the next 90 days or a reasonable period of time so as to prevent what I 
fear the

[[Page 12300]]

most, a downgrade of our Nation's credit rating. I believe such a vote 
on a long-term fix is possible because many good people have already 
worked hard to put together the framework and pieces of what such a 
long-term fix could look like.
  Already we have seen two promising, commonsense proposals from 
bipartisan groups: the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, which presented 
its report nearly 9 months ago, and a similar framework that was 
presented last week by the bipartisan Gang of 6.
  In fact, the day the Gang of 6 announced their proposed framework was 
one of my better and prouder days as a Senator. For the first time 
since I have been in the Senate, I saw Democratic and Republican 
Senators, almost equally divided, come together to put politics aside 
and agree to the principles of a commonsense solution that recognizes 
the urgency of fixing our long-term problems.
  No plan is perfect; no plan will be. No plan will please all, and no 
plan can. But within these two plans I believe lies the path our Nation 
can take if we are to get our fiscal house in order. Of course, some 
will have other ideas, whether from the right or whether from the left, 
and we should listen to them all. But I would ask each of us and all 
the groups that undoubtedly will be mobilized to stop any fix, to think 
hard about what will happen to our great Nation if we fail and do 
nothing. What will happen to the programs we cherish, such as Social 
Security and Medicare, for all those people who depend on that for 
their only means of livelihood? What will happen to our Nation's 
defense and to our tax rates? What will happen to the people who are 
truly in need? What will happen to our seniors, our veterans, and our 
children if we choose to do little or nothing at all?
  Finally, as the negotiations for this long-term fix proceed, I would 
hope we could all remember that if we are to negotiate in good faith, 
we must have faith in each other. We cannot turn a fair compromise into 
the enemy, and we can't tear each other apart with attacks if we are to 
come together to solve our Nation's great problems. We can respectfully 
disagree as long as we never forget to respect each other.
  As difficult as the next few days and weeks and months will be, I 
believe we, the President and this esteemed Congress, have the 
opportunity to make this one of our finest hours. We have within our 
hands an opportunity where we can prove to the naysayers and the 
doubters that the government of the people is as great as the people 
which it serves.
  I, for one, am willing to do whatever I possibly can, whatever is 
asked of me; I will work hard every day, across the aisle, until we 
have a long-term solution to our debt crisis.
  I know no Senator or Member of Congress can do this alone. But 
together, putting politics aside, we can do this. For the sake of this 
great Nation, our children, the State I love, West Virginia, and this 
wonderful country of ours, the United States of America, I truly hope 
we do.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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