Washington, DC— Yesterday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, expressed his serious concerns about our country’s debt crisis and its harmful effects on our economic and national security during an Appropriations Committee markup.
“Let me remind all of you that for 21 straight years, the United States government has spent more money than it took in. There’s not one person sitting in this room that can operate that way, not one business in America can operate with a deficit for 21 years, spending more than they take in. But yet we do it with no recourse whatsoever,” Manchin said in part. “For the first 220 years of our country’s existence, we accumulated about $10 trillion worth, and now we are at $32.5 trillion right now. We’ve done more damage in the last 20 years than in the first 220 years. And we’re not batting an eye at it or slowing it down.”
“We shouldn’t be paid, if we’re causing additional cost to the people of our country, and putting our future generations in more debt that they can’t carry. I hope that we would come to an understanding here today that we have got to be responsible for our own financial house that we were sent here to do for all the constituents that we have around this great country of ours,” Senator Manchin continued.