Joe Manchin

So would your choice program not simply leave holes in West Virginia?

In West Virginia, we just cannot afford to start another education system.

If your staff can get with us and show us how you intend for us to be able to still address the problems we are having because our educators are concerned next year everything stops.

You have gone from like $400 million up to $1.1 billion, which I am very much appreciative, but then it goes right back to nothing.

The problem is we are using that for opioid concerns that we have with students coming from addicted households and maybe even addiction themselves.

I am very concerned about the significant cuts that have been proposed and appreciate you are here to answer our questions.

I would hope that you all would understand the security.

We are very much concerned about ZTE.

Historically trade deals have not been good for our State of West Virginia, and I appreciate the President taking a look at all these trade deals.

I agree with former Chairman Cochran's assertion that the Committee did not intend for the UHF discount to be used as a loophole to the Congressionally-established 39 percent national ownership cap.

It was when the FCC interjected itself to change that rule that basic civility that threw it to a tailspin.

I don't think the will is here for it. That's the shame of it.

I don't think we're asking that. I think, basically, what we're saying is that it worked up until that point in time, and it's gone to heck in a handbasket since.

But, I'm saying, when the airwaves--when there was fairness to the airwaves and to the public, they had to give a balanced approach, a balanced--equal time.

Something's got to be done to save the country. And right now we're destroying each other.

How did our country become so toxicity in the political arena? You know, it's what team you're on and what side you're on, how we can destroy each other. It's just awful. It's not who we are as a country.

We're not going to allow it to be owned by anybody that's not the average citizen that can't get on, having the same opportunities everyone should have.

I think the Internet can be open, and it can be owned by every citizen in this great country of ours.

West Virginia is one of the known--I've been telling most of southern West Virginia, my areas hit the hardest, in some of the most rural areas, the most difficult terrain, that they can expect--

We're having a meeting in West Virginia tomorrow morning. And I'm going to go back to--and I think----

The money is absolutely critical for this to be done, and needs to be started now.

If you lived in West Virginia in the '30s, you probably didn't--in rural West Virginia--didn't have electricity. You live in rural West Virginia now, in 2018, a lot of times, more than likely you don't have connectivity. And we've got to…

That is why I am so worried about the President's Budget Request to cut more than $500 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

I am proud to have worked with my colleagues to dedicate an additional $500 million to NIH for research on opioid addiction.

This is a public health crisis and we have to find a better way.