Mark R. Warner

“There hasn’t been enough focus on the positive aspects of putting a debt and deficit deal together,” said Senator Warner on Tuesday, speaking to a group of students from Georgetown University’s Center for Business and Public Policy.  

“If you look around the world,” he continued, “the American economy looks pretty good… Investors have $2 trillion sitting on the sidelines waiting to invest if we just have the political wherewithal to get this [debt and deficit deal] done.”

Beyond the importance of finding a compromise to avert the fiscal cliff, he spoke about other ways to help spur job creation.

Senator Warner said that the energy industry would benefit from more clarity on future  government policy.  “If the federal government could implement a comprehensive energy policy with a stable regulatory framework…it would lead to predictability for the energy markets.”

A former businessman with strong ties to the telecom and technology industries, he emphasized that re-examining wireless spectrum allocation and implementing cybersecurity legislation could have a major impact on the health IT and education technology industries.

“Consolidating the various government agencies that regulate commerce…into a more user-friendly entity that’s easier for small and midsize businesses to navigate,” said Senator Warner, also will be vital going forward, since “if you’re a business owner, 95% of all your future customers will be international, no matter if you have a small or midsize business, or a fortune 500 company.”

“Because we have such a diverse, robust economy, there’s no one silver bullet to fix it… but this economy has been held back by policy uncertainty, and is ready to leap forward,” he concluded.  “When you consider what’s being asked of people in the rest of the world, it shouldn’t be this hard. We’ve got to get this [deficit/debt deal] done.”

I am saddened to hear that a Navy SEAL based in Virginia was killed during Sunday's successful rescue of an American doctor being held by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I join all Virginians in extending our condolences to the family, friends and teammates of Petty Officer First Class Nicolas Checque. He was a decorated combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and we respect and appreciate his heroic service on behalf of our nation.

Our warriors put their lives on the line each and every day, and Nicolas Checque's sacrifice reminds us again that we must always honor all of our troops and military families.

Americans headed to the polls in huge numbers on Election Day to exercise their most fundamental right. Unfortunately, what they encountered was not an efficient or effective voting system but a haphazard patchwork of procedures resulting in confusion, irregularities and outrageously long lines. In many places — including Virginia — voters were forced to stand in line for hours to simply cast a ballot.

This is not a Republican or Democratic problem; voters from both parties were affected. Nor is it an urban, suburban or rural problem. It is truly a national, bipartisan crisis and one, to quote President Obama, “we have to fix.”

The 2000 presidential election exposed the deep, structural problems that plague our voting system. Twelve years later, our troubles appear to have worsened. It is especially disconcerting when one considers that administrative failures at the polls are — pure and simple — a de facto form of voter suppression.

Among the litany of problems that came to a head on Election Day: Long waits in the cold or the heat. Confusing and conflicting instructions from poorly trained officials. A paucity of voting machines, or aging, malfunctioning machines with few or no backups. A shortage of paper ballots and absentee ballots that failed to reach civilian and military voters in time.

Think about the worker who gets only two hours off to vote and must decide whether to risk the wrath of his employer when the line at the polls takes longer than that. Or the working mother who worries about facing late fees if she doesn’t make it to a booth before she is supposed to pick up her children at day care. Such costs amount to a modern-day poll tax. They must be eliminated.

We saw the problem firsthand at polling places in Virginia, including in Northern Virginia and Chesapeake, where polling places reported waits of up to five hours. This is why we have joined Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) to introduce the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely (FAST) Voting Act of 2012.

The FAST Voting Act recognizes that modernizing the nation’s voting system will require a collaboration by federal, state and local stakeholders, and that we will need to provide incentives to accelerate change. Our legislation would authorize a competitive grant program, similar to the Education Department’s Race to the Top, to reward states that aggressively implement innovative election reforms, and it would measure their progress to ensure the money is well spent. States adopting the most comprehensive and promising reforms would receive a greater portion of the funding.

As Virginia officials with significant experience as chief executives in state and local government, we strongly believe that the federal government often works best when it leverages such “laboratories of democracy” to test innovative policies, identifying those practices worthy of being standardized at the federal level.

Consistent with this principle, our bill avoids overly prescriptive requirements. Instead, it would evaluate voting improvement plans against a diverse set of reforms with the ultimate goal of achieving uniform standards for federal elections.

Among the potential reforms put forth in our bill are: flexible voter registration, including same-day registration; early voting on a minimum of nine of the 10 calendar days preceding an election; no-excuse-needed absentee voting; assistance to voters who do not speak English; assistance to voters with disabilities, including visual impairment; effective access to absentee voting for members of the armed services; better training of election officials; auditing and reducing waiting times at polling stations; and creating contingency plans for voting in the event of a disaster.

This is not a cure-all bill to instantly repair our voting system, nor is it intended to be. From defeating the poll tax and eliminating literacy tests to the adoption of vote-by-mail in some western states, perfecting our voting system has always been an evolutionary endeavor. If enacted, however, the FAST Voting Act would be a decisive step forward, fostering the improvements that are needed to prevent repeating the dysfunction of Nov. 6 and to guarantee that every American is able to exercise his or her fundamental right to vote.

The writers, both Democrats from Virginia, are members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, respectively.

Senator Warner remains optimistic that Congress will reach a budget compromise to avoid sequestration at the end of the year.

At a panel discussion hosted by Bloomberg Government and Deloitte, Senator Warner emphasized the critical importance of continuing to seek a balanced, comprehensive deal to begin addressing our nation's debt and deficits.

"The question is…is this going to be a big enough deal?  And will it be enough of a down payment that it will lead to something else subsequently, that will actually avoid the enormous consequences of $16 trillion in debt?"

Senator Warner, who represents a  lot of government contracting companies in Northern Virginia, said many business leaders have told him the uncertainty about the country's fiscal future has prevented them from making decisions about investment and hiring.

"Maybe the most ridiculous thing that has taken place… is this constant jerking back and forth of a potential government shutdown… Everyone I've talked to said at the end of the day, we will live with whatever budget you give us -- but give us that two to three year runway so we can plan against it."

Other participants on the panel included Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who now heads up the Financial Services Roundtable.

WASHINGTON – Today, Virginia Representatives Jim Moran (VA-08), Frank Wolf (VA-10), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), and Rob Wittman (VA-01) and Senators Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner sent a letter to the administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) urging consideration of Northern Virginia for the new FBI Headquarters location. Their letter follows GSA’s Request for Information seeking input on a location for a consolidated FBI Headquarters in the National Capital Region.

In their letter, the lawmakers requested that GSA undertake a qualitative “source selection” procurement, rather than cost-only process, noting that Northern Virginia is already home to a majority of FBI employees as well as the FBI’s major training academy at Quantico.

Excerpts from the letter:

“We…strongly support providing the FBI with a secure headquarters location that meets the needs of its workforce, allowing them to more effectively carry out their vital law enforcement responsibilities.”

“As you begin this process, we encourage GSA to keep in mind factors that we believe make a location in Northern Virginia a logical and appropriate choice. Northern Virginia is home to a significant majority of the FBI workforce that will be directly impacted by this decision. Clearly, a location in Northern Virginia would minimize adverse effects on these employees.”

“We trust that GSA will conduct this highly anticipated and scrutinized procurement in a fair and open process, and we stand ready to assist with any additional information in support of the selection of a site in Northern Virginia.”

Senator Warner called into Norfolk's FM99 this morning to talk fiscal cliff negotiations. As Rumble in the Morning's Rick Rumble put it, "this is not a bit. It is the real Senator Mark Warner on Rumble in the Morning."

The odds are good that Congress and President Barack Obama will reach a deficit-reduction deal by the end of the year if Republicans agree to increase tax rates for top earners, Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen said.

“I think it’s better than 50 percent that we are able to get an agreement before Jan. 1,” Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said today at a Bloomberg Government panel in Washington.

Van Hollen said his confidence presumes that Republicans will capitulate to allowing the top tax rate to rise above the current 35 percent, which House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders have opposed.

“If that doesn’t come true, it’s less than 50 percent,” Van Hollen said. Congress and the president are trying to avert more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to start in January.

Speaking at today’s panel, Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, said they too think a budget deal will be reached this month.

Unless Congress acts, taxes on income, capital gains, dividends and estates will rise and automatic federal spending cuts, known as sequestration, will begin in January.

“I think it’s 80 percent-plus that we will avoid sequestration,” said Warner, a member of a bipartisan group of senators who had been trying independently of leadership to craft a broad deficit-reduction plan.

Tax Focus

Corker and Pawlenty said Obama has focused too much on taxes and that to reach a deal, greater emphasis must be given to finding savings in entitlement programs. Unlike the question of raising rates for top earners, on which most Democrats agree, congressional Democrats are divided over what changes to entitlement programs they could accept.

“You basically have a president, let’s face it, that not to be too pejorative, that’s been a one-trick pony,” Corker said. “The rate is all he’s been talking about.”

Pawlenty, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, said the two sides must discuss “what can you live with, what is your red line and is there some overlap between those two things” to put a deal together.

“You can’t push people to a place where they can’t go, and leaders in negotiations have to understand that and communicate and figure out where the common space is,” Pawlenty said. “You can’t corner people with no way out because then you’ll have a failure.”

Corker said he hoped that “instead of spiking the ball” and letting the tax cuts expire, Obama would work personally with Boehner to hammer out an agreement.

‘Sit Down’

“I hope they’ll sit down and mesh something together that Republicans could be OK with, that generates the kind of revenues that we need but also the kind of entitlement reforms,” he said.

Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican who told his colleagues privately last week that their negotiating position would be improved by agreeing to raise rates for top earners, told reporters yesterday that Boehner would have to get most House Republicans on board for any plan he’d agree to with Obama.

“That is just politics 101,” Cole said. “When you are cutting a deal with the opposite party they’ve got, politically, to be able to sell this deal to the majority of their members. ”

‘Comprehensive Solution’

Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, said Republican leadership is working on a “comprehensive solution” to avert a possible fiscal crisis rather than focusing on extending tax cuts for all except the top earners.

“At this point it’s still how do we get to a comprehensive solution,” Camp, a Michigan Republican, told reporters. “Obviously you have to think about all the options potentially. I think people are thinking about it, but I think we want to see if we can get a comprehensive answer at this point.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today again called on Boehner to schedule a vote on a Senate-passed tax-cut bill. He said every Democrat in the House would support the one-year extension of expiring tax cuts for income of individuals up to $200,000 a year and married couples up to $250,000.

“You have the ability and you’re the only one who has the ability to put this on the floor for a vote,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor. It would take 26 “reasonable Republicans” in the House to pass the bill, he added.

Business Owners

House Republican leaders are meeting today with a group of small business owners who Republicans say would face higher taxes under Obama’s proposal.

Meanwhile, members of AARP, which represents more than 37 million senior citizens, fanned out across Capitol Hill today to lobby lawmakers against any deal that cuts Medicare and Medicaid benefits. In particular, they oppose any effort to raise the Medicare eligibility age and change the way Social Security cost-of-living payments are calculated. Both of these concepts were part of failed talks between Boehner and Obama last year on a deficit-reduction agreement.

Great news for jobs and investment in the Commonwealth:  on Monday, International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or ‘Intelsat’, the operator of the world’s largest fleet of commercial satellites, announced that it will relocate its headquarters from Washington D.C. to Northern Virginia.

The move includes Intelsat signing a 15-year lease in Tysons Corner, which will bring 430 high-skill, high-wage jobs to Tysons Corner Center.

Sen. Warner was pleased to play a small role in the company’s decision, as the Washington Business Journal reports:

“Intelsat S.A.’s move to Tysons started innocently enough with a visit from Virginia Sen. Mark Warner to the satellite provider’s D.C. headquarters.  As Warner’s tour ended, Intelsat CEO David McGlade commented to the Senator that the satellite giant has a tough decision to make, between Maryland and Virginia… Moments later, McGlade said…he got a call from Gov. Bob McDonnell, touting Virginia and asking what he could do to lure Intelsat to the commonwealth.” 

To read the full article, click here.

Live from the New York Stock Exchange on CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street’, Senator Warner spoke this morning about the fiscal cliff and his efforts to avert it by finding common ground.  He stressed that a compromise could have an immediate positive impact on financial markets and job growth across the country. 

“I spent a lot of time around markets,” said Senator Warner, a venture capitalist and former co-founder of the company that became Nextel. “I believe that if we get a real plan that passes the market smell test and hits that $4 trillion mark, it will do more for job activity and economic growth than anything.” 

Senator Warner emphasized the importance of having all Americans, including members of Congress and the business community, work together to resolve this issue, since “we all benefitted from the $16 trillion in debt that’s been run up. We need to turn this argument away from who won the last election or us versus them.”

Our office is kicking off the holiday season today by displaying a gorgeous, 12-foot Fraser fir grown in Grayson County by Rodney and Cynthia Richardson. 

The Richardsons, who own Mt. Rogers Tree Farm, also are providing a Christmas tree to Governor Bob McDonnell and his family for the Executive Mansion in Richmond. 

The beauty in our Capitol Hill office will be decorated with paper ornaments handmade by students at three elementary schools in Northern Virginia.  

For more information about getting your own Virginia Christmas tree, visit the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association at http://www.virginiachristmastrees.org/.