During a portion of an interview with the Fox Business Network aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Mornings with Maria,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) argued America does have a debt problem and advocated for an agreement to raise the debt ceiling “as long as we agree to identify the debt we have and how we start reducing it.”
Manchin stated, “I think what we have to do is realize that we have a problem. We have a debt problem. … And all we’re saying is should we not make sure that we all recognize how we got there, how we prevent from going further? So, let’s take our trust — the trust funds, Medicare, Social Security, or our Highway Trust, you can’t let those go defunct as far as — and what we’re saying is, we have a TRUST Act, and we would put different committees, bipartisan, bicameral committees together to look at each one of the trusts and come up with solutions of how you fix it. We’re not getting rid of anything and you can’t scare the bejesus out of people saying we’re going to get rid of Social Security…that’s not going to happen. But we should be able to solidify it so that people who have worked and earned it know they’re going to get it. And that’s what we’re talking about. And I’ve talked to Kevin McCarthy briefly about that. I’m going to go spend more time to find out how we can bring things together and we should do that and that guarantees it comes to the floor for a vote so the American people see that we have some solutions. It might pass and it might not. And then we should look at something, the Bowles-Simpson was a brave attempt at trying to get our finances under control. We didn’t do it. That needs to come to a vote also. So, we can do a hybrid of that, if we can do that, and we say, okay, we agree to raise the debt ceiling as long as we agree to identify the debt we have and how we start reducing it.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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