Gov. Joe Manchin chats with Rotary President Tom Midkiff.

April 29, 2008

"The only handicap a person can have is a bad attitude," Gov. Joe Manchin told Putnam Rotarians meeting at Sleepy Hollow today. The governor was quoting Scotty Hamilton, the great figure skater who fought and overcame life-threatening cancer.

"Physical, mental handicaps can be overcome. But with a bad attitude, that's something you can't overcome. You've got to want to change it," the state's chief executive said.

When he became governor of West Virginia over three years ago, he "knew that we weren't ranked fiftieth in all good categories. We weren't first in all bad categories," he said. "I knew that. I just wasn't so sure that the rest of us knew it."

When he became governor, he intended to run the state like a business.

"Rsponsible for 1,800,000 people, stockholders, and with fiduciary responsibilities, you'd better be up on your game, whether it be through social needs and services, the responsibilities to the Constitution, or your financial responsibilities. You'd better make sure you have your house in order.

"I thought I'd better see what my creditors think about my new company called West Virginia. So I go to Wall Street. I said tell me what you think -- Standard and Poors, Moody's, and Fitch's -- about our state and will you make an investment.

"And they laid it out, telling us where we stood: that our debt ratios were too high, that we had a lack of diversification -- enough business activities to really hold us through some rough times because we were totally immersed in the energy market; in the construction industry.

"Demographics: that they were concerned because of the age of our population, our working population.

"And I took notes on all of these things.

"I came back to the Legislature, and I said we're going to start right here.

"People have said this session wasn't that active. There wasn't that much had gone on. Let me tell you, it was one of the most successful sessions we've had. It was low key because there was no hot button issue. There was nothing that got you fired up emotionally saying I'm all for that or I'm all against that.

"What we did was see what we could do with the success we've had. You know, we've paid down almost two billion dollars in debt, . . . and we've reduced taxes while we were paying it down. And also we maintained our services. We ran our government in a more responsible way.

"How could all of that happen? Well, we hit a good market. Energy has been good. But we've taken advantage.

"But we were robbing Peter to pay Paul, the same as when you get behind in your own household finances and you have credit cards coming. You have the house payment. You have the car payment; the insurance payment, you buy food for the kids. And then you say, 'Where did this thousand-dollar-a-month payment come from on the credit cards?' And you start sliding things around. And that's what was happening for far too long for us with the state. We changed that.

"And we now have a handle on all of our debt -- our long-term debt. We've disciplined ourselves. We didn't start new programs. We didn't expand a program. There's not one program with my name on it. We had enough programs. We didn't manage what we had. And I just said, 'Let's start looking at how we're running this place.'

"We paid down debt. We had ten billion dollars in unmanaged debt, four billion in Workers' Comp, five billion unfunded teachers liability, and then we had another billion we owed for our troopers and our judges retirement.

"If people in Washington need to learn how to play well in the sandbox or in the playground, come to West Virginia and we'll show you how to do it.

"There's a time to put partisan politic aside -- whether it comes from mine safety -- the tragedies we've had -- we had to work swiftly and move swiftly to overcome that -- and start moving forward so we still had confidence in the industry. And we did that very, very well.

"We had to put our differences aside and start responsibly reducing taxes -- putting money in people's pocket -- but be able to do that smoothly enough that we could still pay our bills.

"Who would have thought we would have an world class automotive industry ten years ago right here in West Virginia? Right here in Putnam County? Who would have thought that would have been possible? I don't think a whole lot of people would have given us a good chance on that one.

"Now we use this automotive industry -- from Toyota, to Diamond, to NGK, to Nippon -- to all of our great neighbors; we use that as our gold standard. If you're looking to make an investment somewhere in North America and you want to know how world-class companies make their decisions, come and talk to them. If you want to find out if they're getting a return on investment, come and talk to them. If you want to find out if government is a good partner, and we're trying to help them, not making it difficult for them to do business, come and talk to them.

"Go in there and talk to them. Ask them any question you want. Are we working with them? Are we assisting them? Are we helping them? Did we really become their partner, or is it just lip service? If we're not, we've got to know, and we've got to change. If we are, then they're the best salespeople we have. And now we've just welcomed our twentieth new Japanese company.

"Now let me say this about Putnam County: If you all had not embraced that first investment from the Japanese company, and accepted them into your community and worked with them in education and everything else that you've made adjustments -- we would not have the success we're having today," the governor said.

"So I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And all the people of West Virginia should thank you for the way you have been able to integrate another culture, another society, bringing opportunities and good jobs, helping people take care of their families.

"Who would have thought, when you look all around the country, and in all our surrounding states -- every state around is having budget problems; they're either raising taxes or cutting services or a combination of both - you're sitting in West Virginia, we're lowering taxes, we're maintaining services, and we have surpluses. Who ever would have thought you would be sitting here where the national limelight is on you?

"We're one of the few states in the nation that still has a very stable economy and does not look to go in the tank. And that's being recognized by the National Conference of State Legislators, which surveys and reviews what states are having serious problems. And we're not one of them.

"Did you think one of the national organizations that rank the expansion and places to locate rates West Virginia as being eighth best in the nation? You don't hear a lot about that.

"You hear about the stereotype perceptions. And that's up to us to change that.

"There's optimism in the air. People feel good. They're willing to go out and invest. We've created 23,000 new jobs. We have four billion dollars of new investment.

"Right here, you've created 275 new jobs since I have become governor, right here in this community of Putnam County. You've attracted 1.6 billion dollars of new investment. You're doing something right. We're all doing something right because we're working together.

"This is what we keep talking about. I've said this many times, I can show you the roadmap to success, but the bottom line is, that no one is willing to address, that they must not believe that you have value or a marketable return on their investment. That's the proof of the pudding.

"I can sit here and talk all day long and tell you how wonderful things are, but if people aren't willing to get out of their comfort zone and make investments, and expand, and do the things they should be doing, to be very aggressive in a marketplace -- and in West Virginia, we're stepping out. We're not paying attention to what they're telling us from Washington and New York. We know, because we don't see any debt. And it's getting better because we are working together.

"Let me just run down some of the successes you all have had: AEP, Toyota, Diamond Electric, Schwan Food Services, Multicoat Products, Advanced Technical Solutions -- and the future continues to get brighter -- new elementary school in the neighborhood, small business bustling, and the Route 35 upgrade.

Photo published in Gazette, 29 April 2008.

"A lot of my friends in the political arena weren't happy with that. I said, let me tell you one thing: this is honest as I can be. Facts do not lie. And the figures are not lying here. If we are going to help the areas that we know have lost population and are going to have resurgence in some of our other areas you'd better invest the money so that you can get the quickest and best return to help those who can't help themselves. That's the bottom line. . . .

"We're not starting any new roads. My goodness, we're still trying to finish roads that were started forty and fifty years ago. Funds were coming from the federal highway -- and now we're told it might not happen. And don't even plan on anything new. So we've had to find alternative ways.

"As soon as I started talking that we had to use all the tools in the toolbox, to see what the people of the community wanted -- 'Oh, my goodness! Joe Manchin's going to push and force us to have toll roads!' I have never said a word about toll roads.

"Now, if you have all the tools and you're figuring out how to finance, you want to finish something in your lifetime or your children's, we have given every option we can. We've used TIF -- tax incremental financing. We've got infrastructure. We're committed by 2010 to having the entire state wired -- broadband and high speed. We are doing everything we can to make sure we can compete in a global economy.

"I look at what we need to do, and I say I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and there's not a train coming anymore. And I do see the sunshine. And it is getting brighter.

"But it's up to us to take ourselves to the next level. You've got to believe in yourself. I tell people, 'I believe in you more than you believe in yourself, because you've never let me down.' I've never had West Virginians fail at anything they wanted to do. And it's all in attitude.

"The one thing I can't overcome is if you or anyone else goes out and bad-mouths the state of West Virginia. If we've got to have changes, let's work on the changes. . . . I can hire all the sales people. I can spend all the money on TV, and I can't undo what you will do because someone says, 'My goodness, you mean you live there? And that's the way it really is? And I've heard all these other things? Well, I won't go there.'

"But if you will say, 'Guess what! I've got a business in a little state you're not going to believe. And we're making investments and we're expanding our business because it is unbelievable the return we're receiving, the way people will work with us, the way the government has become our partner. I can't tell you how good it is. It's West Virginia.'

"And you know something? I can't buy that advertisement either. I don't have enough money or enough salesmen to sell that one. That's a difference of attitude.

"People ask, 'What's the biggest challenge you have had since you've been governor?' It's making people believe in themselves and take ownership. If you're not willing to take ownership of this state, then we're going to be getting what we've been getting. If you're finally saying, 'This is my state and I own it, and I'm going to keep my value. I'm going to continue to keep it and maintain it. I'm going to continue to do routine maintenance - no different than a car.'

"I tell people this: 'When is the last time you rented a car? And you checked all the fluid levels to make sure everything was perfect before you brought it back?" You don't do it. All you care about is basically where you stop to get the cheapest gas and they won't double up on you when you get there. And you don't care if steam is coming out of the radiator without a drop of oil in it. If it runs enough to get to that front door and you can shut it down and you got your deposit back -- you're out of there! That's human nature. That's who we are.

"But if it's your car, oh, my goodness, it needs to have an oil change. It's time for the monthly checkup. You put value. And all I'm asking the people of West Virginia is start taking ownership and putting value on routine maintenance. We're going to be fine.

"But you've got to do that. You can't sit back and say, 'Hey, guess what? That spigot is leaking. Not my house. It's yours. You'd better come fix it. That's not mine. Well, there's a lot of trash in the yard. I don't know how the trash got there. It's not my yard. I live here cause I'm renting it. But it's yours. Come clean it up.'

"That's tha attitude we've been dealing with for far too long. So we've got to get to that next level.

"I see the vision of how good this state can be. I can tell you -- and I will end on this -- we are the envy of the whole world. They just don't know it yet. But we are telling our story."