Joe Manchin: “I rise today to speak of one of my gravest concerns, which is our Nation's fiscal future. All of us--Democrats…”

“I rise today to speak of one of my gravest concerns, which is our Nation's fiscal future. All of us--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, moderates, conservatives--face a choice about whether we will seize the moment before us and confront our great fiscal nightmare or whether we will let this moment pass us by. Clearly, we face tough and difficult decisions. The decision we make as Members of Congress must be the right and responsible ones or our beloved Nation and our hard-working families will needlessly suffer. In my State, when I became Governor, we faced challenging times-- growing debts and tough budget choices. When I was first elected in November of 2004, the first thing I did afterwards was go to New York and talk to the rating agencies--the people who knew our State best--to find out what our gravest challenges were. I went back home and we started making changes. I did not blame anyone--any past administration, Republican or Democrat or any other body. I was elected to fix things, not to put blame on people. As West Virginians, not as Democrats or Republicans, we set about fixing the problems of our State. We didn't raise tax rates. People came to me and said we needed to do that, but I couldn't look people in the eye and do that without trying to run our State more efficiently. The difference between what we did back home and what is happening here in Washington is that we faced these choices together.…”