August 30, 2024

Icymi: Manchin Speaks At West Virginia Chamber Of Commerce Business Summit

White Sulphur Springs, WV – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV) spoke at the 88th West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting and Business Summit to thank local officials and leaders who have helped him in his 42 years of public service as well as discuss his extensive list of bipartisan accomplishments for West Virginia. Senator Manchin also received a resolution of appreciation for his dedication to supporting West Virginia’s business community.

Thanking the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce:

“I want to say thank you to all of you…I've been here so many times and talked so many different times about this, but you launched my career. When you think about it, you've launched it, you supported it, then you have saved it from time to time,” Senator Manchin said in part.

On federal investments for West Virginia:

“I look at the last 14 years in the Senate, we've been able to bring Shelley and all of us, working together as a team, $200 billion of federal investment to this state, to our state of West Virginia. $200 billion… that's in Social Security, Medicare, and in all of the other things. In the last four years alone, just the last four years, $80 billion to the state of West Virginia. That's $22 billion more than we've ever done in the history of our state, in that period of time.” Senator Manchin continued.

On our nation’s energy production:

“As the energy powerhouse that we are, and I brag about us, let me tell you, we are reinventing ourselves. We're always going to need the fossil, and we're going to need it better and cleaner than ever before. We're doing that, but we're also investing in a new technology, and I've said this, we're going to produce the energy that we need today, while we're investing in energy we like to have tomorrow,” Senator Manchin stated.

On bipartisanship:

“President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, ‘I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.’ Think about that. ‘I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.’ And I have said this, when my country does well, my state does well, and when my state's doing well, I guarantee you, my country is doing well. That's what we should be for, working for. It's not about the Democrat party is going to do this or that, for or against you, or the Republican Party is your enemy and not your friend, or vice versa. It’s basically we all have a different idea of how we can make things work better, as long as we're able to work together. And it should be one, one party, the American party,” Senator Manchin continued.

On successes in the U.S. Senate:

“The bills that we've done, the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, the IRA bill, let me just tell you those bills, if we stay within the confines of how the bills were written, those bills have done what they were supposed to do when we wrote the bills. We weren't energy secure. We are energy secure now. We're producing more, and we can even do better. We weren't investing in new technology, weren't creating jobs and incentives, weren't going to have tax opportunities. We didn't do that, and we are,” Senator Manchin said in part.

On the national debt, the greatest threat to our country:

“This will be the first year since World War II that basically we have surpassed that interest on our debt will be greater than what we pay to run our country, as far as defend our country. It's unbelievable. $35.2 trillion as of this morning. We've never done that. There's ways we can fix that, but you got to hold people accountable,” Senator Manchin stated.

Photos from the event are available here.

To watch Senator Manchin’s full speech, click here.