Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I hope all Members of the House will check the facts with respect to the impact of the Affordable Care Act on Medicare. If you actually look at what has happened since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the per capita rate of increase in health care costs in this country has actually gone down. Talk to seniors on Medicare. Anybody who is paying attention right now, I ask them: What has their Part B premium done over the last couple of years? It has been steadier. In fact, this year, it went down in real terms. The value that seniors have gotten under Medicare has actually improved significantly, in part, due to the Affordable Care Act. Now, unlike the Democratic budget, which used some of the savings from getting rid of overpayments to some of the big insurance companies in Medicare and using those savings to strengthen things like the prescription drug benefit, the Republican budget keeps every dime of the Medicare savings from the Affordable Care Act, but they don't use any of it to strengthen Medicare. In fact, they reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. They start charging seniors now for preventative health services. Ultimately, they actually end the Medicare guarantee by turning Medicare into a voucher program, so that, if you actually wanted to stay in traditional Medicare, you would be paying a whopping high premium. That is not the way we should go, and that is all in a budget that continues to provide tax breaks to the very wealthy in this country. Those are not the right priorities for America. Now, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the ranking member of the Small Business Committee and a Member who has focused on the right priorities for America and who recognizes that small business is the engine of growth and opportunity.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentlelady an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman referred to tough decisions. Well, it is true that the House Republican budget is really tough on our kids' education. It cuts deeply into early education, Early Head Start, and Head Start. It cuts very deeply into K-12. That includes Title I and special education for kids with disabilities. As we have talked about, it charges college students higher interest rates. And it is true that the Republican budget is tough on seniors on Medicare, because if they have high prescription drug costs, the Republican budget reopens the doughnut hole so they will face $1,200 more per year on prescription drugs. So it is tough on kids' education, and it is tough on seniors. I will tell you who it is not tough on. It is not tough on powerful special interests, people who are spending millions of dollars right now on TV advertising trying to influence people's votes. It is not tough on them at all. As I said, this budget calls for cutting the top tax rate by, fully, 30 percent. Now, during the Budget Committee debate, the Democrats said, okay, the only way you can do this mathematically, if you are cutting the top rate by 30 percent, from 39 percent to 25 percent, is if you do it in a deficit neutral way, then you are going to be increasing taxes on middle class taxpayers and families to finance those tax cuts. And so we said to our Republican colleagues, if that is not what you intend to do, let's at least pass an amendment telling the Ways and Means Committee that one of our principles is at least maintaining the current progressivity of the Tax Code so we don't increase taxes on middle class families or lower-income families to finance the tax breaks for the folks at the top, called the Protect the American Middle Class from a Tax Increase amendment. Republicans said no to that. They have got all sorts of other instructions to the Ways and Means Committee in their budget, like reducing the top rate by a third for millionaires; but when it came to instructing the Ways and Means Committee not to increase the tax burden on middle class Americans, they said no to that. So, yes, this Republican budget is tough on the middle class. It is tough on seniors, and it is tough on our kid's education; but for folks at the very top, they just don't ask for any shared sacrifice. We are just pointing that out. It is a fact in their budget. The chairman talked about all those tax expenditures, $1 trillion a year worth. Not one of those tax expenditures are closed for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Now, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), a Member of Congress who has worked hard throughout his entire career to try and make sure that our country grows and that every American has opportunity, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, it is now my privilege to yield 2 minutes the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), a fighter for working Americans and a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, it is now my privilege to yield 4 minutes to a fellow Marylander, Mr. Hoyer, the Democratic whip, who has spent a lot of time focused on budgets to empower our economy and to make sure we do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I now am very pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a terrific member of the Budget Committee who is focused on lots of important issues including the challenge of poverty in America.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is remaining on each side.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Does the chairman have any further speakers?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We all believe in a growing economy, and we all believe in greater prosperity. The issue is how do we make sure we have that prosperity as a country. We have two very important strains in the American character. One strain is the entrepreneurial strain, the self-reliance strain, and that has helped generate great prosperity in this country. It has helped unleash huge amounts of potential; yet we have also learned as a country that there are some things we can do better by working together than if we are just hundreds of millions of people who are separately operating on their own, with things like investing in our national infrastructure, with things like investing in a world- class college system, with things like working and investing in medical research, so that we are the world's leader in those areas. Those are what have made us a world economic power and that have allowed us to support our military. The problem with the Republican budget is that it ignores that part of the American character. We keep hearing from our colleagues about all of those tax expenditures that are out there, but I just have to go back, Mr. Chairman, to point out that they don't close one of those tax loopholes for the purpose of helping to reduce the deficit. Because they make that decision--because they decide to say: we are not going to touch those very powerful special interests and the very wealthy--their budget mathematically has to come after other people in the country, after the middle class, after seniors, after our kids' education, after our infrastructure. That is what this is all about. Our budget and the President's budget dramatically reduce the deficit. They reduce the debt as a function of a share of the economy in the outyears going down. The Republican budget didn't balance until 2040 just a few years ago. So the issue is whether you are going to be driven by the ideological target or whether your fundamental focus will be jobs and opportunity. That is what ours does. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) control the balance of the time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would just note that it is this Republican budget here in the House of Representatives that divides America. And when we point out that this is a budget that protects tax breaks for the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else, our colleagues say, oh, no, no, that is dividing America. But what we are explaining is the Republican budget, and that is, unfortunately, what it does. The chairman originally said that only in Washington is an increase really a cut. I would just point out that in the President's defense budget, it goes from $521 billion in fiscal year 2015 to $646 billion 10 years from now--hardly a cut, in fact, quite an expansion going forward. I am now pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee who has focused a lot on defense.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me just point out to the gentleman that the President's budget has two things in it. First of all, it actually calls for a fund to increase defense spending for readiness in fiscal year 2015, which is not included in the Republican budget. Number two, in the outyears, the President also grows our defense spending; and as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense have testified, those investments will make sure that the United States is second to none. In fact, the next 10 countries after that, together, spend much less on defense than the United States, and we will continue to have that additional robust defense spending to make sure that we are strong, but we also need to make sure that our economy is strong to support that kind of budget, and if you have got the important investments that have helped make the economy grow over time, you will not get that. Now, I will just respond to the gentleman's comments on revenue. Anytime the economy is growing, if you have a certain tax rate, you are going to get more absolute dollars of revenue in, but I mentioned that the last time we had actually had a balanced budget in this country was in the year 1998 through 2001. If you look at the amount of revenue that was coming in during that period as a percent of the economy, you will find that revenue was 19.2 percent in 1998, 19.2 percent in 1999, 19.9 percent in 2000, and so on, way ahead of the amount of revenue as a percentage of the economy that this Republican budget calls for in year 10, even though, between now and then, we will have millions more Americans on Medicare and Social Security. So, again, they just can't bring themselves to close one of these special interest tax breaks, not one for the purpose of reducing the deficit and contributing to our economic well-being. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am glad the chairman of the committee recognized that there are about $1 trillion worth of tax expenditures. What does that mean? That means tax preferences in the Tax Code. $1 trillion a year, he said. That is right. And yet, the Republican budget doesn't close one penny of those tax expenditures to help reduce our deficit, not one. It says we have to reserve all those tax loophole closures to cut the top rate for millionaires by one-third, from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is what they want to do with all the tax expenditures. Because they refuse to get rid of one of those tax expenditures for the purposes of deficit reduction, their budget does hit all these students. What is honest is to tell students who are going to college right now that this budget is going to charge them over $40 billion more in interest because now they are going to have to pay interest while they are still in college, even though it doesn't close one of those tax expenditures for very wealthy people to help meet the targets and reduce the deficit, not one. So, as we look at the priorities in this budget, we have to ask ourselves, why is it that this Republican budget doesn't call for any shared responsibility? Why is it that it does provide tax breaks to folks at the very top at the expense of the rest of the country? Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just point out that we hear a lot about the global aggregate numbers, but the distribution of those cuts is important. If you look at the portion of the budget that we have, historically, used to invest in education, to invest in innovation, to invest in places like the National Institutes of Health, that portion of the budget is cut by 24 percent relative to the bipartisan Ryan-Murray agreement. And it is cut from there. So the part of the budget that does a lot of damage that we are focused on in terms of future investments, really does mean that we are going to be less competitive as a country. It will dull our competitive edge. And I will tell you, our economic competitors will be cheering. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think, for the people who may be watching this, and for our colleagues, the question is, how do we achieve the priorities that we hope we all want to achieve, which is jobs growing faster, the economy growing faster, and deal with the long term deficit and debt in a responsible manner? The glaring problem with the congressional Republican budget is that they don't call for any shared responsibility. They don't ask the most powerful special interests to contribute one dime by closing a single tax break, not one. And because they shelter the most powerful and the most wealthy, everybody else has to take a hit in their budget. As a result, the entire country takes a hit because those are investments in our kids' education, in basic science and research that are important to help power our entire economy. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.