Tag: Joe Manchin

The Export-Import Bank Seeks to Empower Small Businesses in W.Va.

Those attending an event at the Culture Center in Charleston learned more about how the Export-Import Bank might help them succeed. Senator Joe Manchin and Export Import Bank Chairman, Fred Hochberg hosted the forum titled, Small Business Global Access: Your Competitive Edge.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States, also known as the Ex-Im Bank identifies as an independent, self-sustaining federal agency with the mission of financing U.S. exports to create and maintain jobs in the United States. It assumes the credit and country risks a private sector is unable or unwilling to accept, and does this work at no cost of the American taxpayer.

“We support US companies, mostly small businesses, so they can tap into overseas markets,” said Hochberg. “Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the US, and I want to make sure that West Virginia’s companies are tapping into those rich markets.”

Senator Joe Manchin says he’s excited to have chairman Hochberg in Charleston to discuss the benefits the Ex-Im Bank would bring to small businesses in West Virginia.

“I never thought that we as West Virginians had access or knew enough to access the Import-Export Bank,” said Manchin, “and all the things they can do and help us open up a whole global market, was something I was excited about. So I asked Fred, I said Fred would you come to West Virginia? He said, be happy too. So he’s here today, because of the enthusiasm that we have to try to help West Virginians create more business to create more jobs, and that’s really what it’s about.”

The Ex-Im Bank assists small businesses in four ways:

  • Providing payment coverage for both commercial and political risks.
  • Extending credit to buyers which allows exporters to sell on competitive “open account” terms instead of acquiring cash-in-advance, credit cards, etc.
  • Guaranteeing an exporter’s inventory be turned into eligible collateral for the lender.
  • Through term financing where foreign buyers may obtain financing at competitive rates and extended repayment terms.

“We’ve got companies here in the full range in the service industry, manufacturing, company that makes scales that weighs Konawa, Konawa Scale Company that weighs heavy equipment, Level Tech, equipment manufacturers, energy, a full range of products, products and services. What we need to do is, West Virginia has a lot of talent, a lot of great businesses, we need to make sure that West Virginia companies are hitting global markets and building in sales and then supporting more jobs here at home.”
Manchin noted that many West Virginians with small businesses want to stay in the state but they worry they can’t make a living here.  Manchin thinks that if you have an idea and the work ethic, you should be able to live anywhere and support yourself, and by seeking the aid of the Export-Import Bank, you can do this.

“What we do at the Export-Import Bank, we’re about supporting businesses, small businesses with export sales so that [they’re] better jobs here at home, and this is all about jobs. Like the senator said, more people can make a living, a good living here, by tapping into worldwide markets.”

Sen. Joe Manchin Says Our Troops Need to Come Home

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin continues to speak out against keeping US troops in Afghanistan after this year, and he is questioning continued US involvement in Iraq as well.

Last month, President Obama announced that the current 32,000 troops in Afghanistan will be drawn down to 9,800 by the start of next year. The President plans to withdraw those 9,800 by 2016. Senator Joe Manchin sent the President a letter on June 9th expressing his opposition to his decision of keeping any troops in Afghanistan after this year.

“If the sectarian forces are greater than any, ideologically or philosophical, we have to understand that. We cannot change the culture. We have not been successful with money or military might to change that part of the world, we would’ve done it by now.”

Manchin says both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the United States trillions of dollars. More than 6,000 soldiers have died fighting in the two countries.  Manchin says unless the people of Iraq and Afghanistan rise to the level of wanting to defend themselves from terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, the United States can’t do anything else for them. Manchin does not think the US needs to have a permanent presence in a country if we are unable to change the minds and ideas of the people there.

“I’ve said this, we can stay in Iraq or we can stay in Afghanistan for another year, another ten years, or twenty years, [but] unless we intend to stay in perpetuity, forever, to try to keep some type of force because they don’t have the will or the backbone to defend themselves, they don’t have the desire to basically die for their homeland, or fight and die for their homeland, as Americans have for ours, and it’s a sectarian type of war. Only thing we can do is offer help to those who want to help themselves. You can’t force them to enter the fight. If the Sunnis are not going to fight against their own sectarian brothers and sisters, the Sunnis, we can’t make them do that. If it’s going to separate into a sectarian civil war, such as you have the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites, that’s where it’s been, that’s where it’s gonna go maybe, and that’s maybe territorial, I don’t know. We can’t force that to stay together as a country, Iraq or Syria, if it’s not going to be the will of the people.”

Manchin says the US has been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than any war in the country’s history and he says neither have been successful.

Online Search Tool Launched for Manchin Papers

  The West Virginia Division of Culture and History is introducing a new online tool to search U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s gubernatorial papers.

Officials say Manchin is scheduled to attend an exhibition and demonstration Friday at the Culture Center in Charleston.

The collection includes a diverse selection of materials beginning with his inaugural speech in January 2005. The collection runs through November 2010, when he resigned his position to fill the U.S. Senate position made vacant by the death of longtime Sen. Robert C. Byrd. It includes speeches, proclamations, general correspondence, photographs and other materials.

An online search tool will allow people free, 24-hour access to the catalog listings. Archives patrons may then visit the library in Charleston to view the papers and request copies of materials in the collection.

Manchin to Obama: Withdraw Troops from Afghanistan

  U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is opposing President Barack Obama’s plan to keep 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

In a letter Monday, the Democratic senator urged the president to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Manchin’s letter says the war has consumed 12 years, cost untold billions of dollars, and ended the lives of more than 2,000 Americans.

Manchin says regardless of when American support of the Afghan state ends, it will remain, in his words, a “corrupt narco-state unwilling to abide by international norms or support American interests.”

In a plan announced last month, Obama calls for the current 32,000 in Afghanistan to draw down to 9,800 by the start of next year. The rest of the troops would be withdrawn by 2016.

Two W.Va. Medical Centers Receive Federal Grants

  Two medical centers in West Virginia have been awarded federal grants to improve services and continue operations.

Minnie Hamilton Health Care Center in Grantsville and Preston-Taylor Community Health Centers in Newburg each received more than $1 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Federal Assistance Management. 

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin announced the Health Center Cluster grants on Monday.

The grant provides financial assistance to health care centers that serve rural or underserved areas.

 
 

Manchin: Israel and Palastine Need to Find "Pathway to Peace"

Senator Joe Manchin is wrapping up a six day tour of Israel and the West Bank, meeting with political and spiritual leaders along the way.

On a conference call with reporters Friday, Manchin called his trip both spiritual and educational.

The Senator met with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah separately to talk about finding a “pathway to peace” for both countries.

“But I don’t see a pathway to negotiations that can lead to peace unless the Palestinians openly, to the free press and in their native language, are able to acknowledge that the Israelis, the native people of Israel, have a right to their own state,” he said.

Manchin said the U.S. has long served as a facilitator of conversations between the two nations and should continue to fill that role. He called the relationship between the two countries important because of Israel’s “strategic” location in the Middle East.

The trip was paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, a Washington, D.C., based nonprofit that works to educate students and politicians about the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. The non-profit is affiliated with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israel lobbying group.
 

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