Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad the gentlelady brought up the issue of health care and how these budgets impact health care. She described their proposal as giving seniors a choice. It's interesting that they would give seniors on Medicare a choice that they don't want themselves to have, that they give Members of Congress a much better deal in health care than they would give to seniors on Medicare. Here's what their budget would do in ending the Medicare guarantee. This blue line shows the current level of support Medicare beneficiaries get from the Medicare program, up around 90 percent. That green line right there, that's the level of support Members of Congress get from the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. You can see it's steady; as costs go up, the support goes up proportionally. The Republican plan, that red line, is the one for seniors. That takes support steadily down relative to rising health care costs so that seniors would have to eat those rising health care costs. They bear the risk. That is a bad plan for American seniors. It's a bad plan for America. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, who has focused a lot on these issues as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Neal.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. At this point I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I do think the focus should be on our children and on the future, and that's why our budget does not do some of the things the Republican budget does do, which is, for example, say that kids who have preexisting conditions, whether it's diabetes or asthma, get insurance. We make sure that those kids can't be excluded because of preexisting conditions. They don't. We make sure that the interest rates on student loans don't double this July, as their budget would allow, because we think it's important that those students have an opportunity to get the education to get ahead and succeed. So I hope we will continue to focus on that question as we debate the choices that are being made in this budget. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Yarmuth.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I have great respect for the Speaker. I would just suggest that he may call it a tough choice to provide and lock in another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while cutting Medicaid by $800 billion, a full one-third, by the year 2022. Two- thirds of that money goes to seniors in nursing homes and disabled individuals. I don't know if it's a tough choice. It's certainly the wrong choice. And that's what this debate is all about. It's not about whether we reduce our deficits, but how. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Democratic Caucus, Mr. Larson.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We're here at a very important time for our country. As a result of extraordinary actions that have been taken over the last 4 years, and thanks to the tenacity of the American people and small businesses, we have begun to climb out of a big economic hole. If you look at this chart right here, you'll see where we were back in January 2009, the first month President Obama was sworn in and took office. At that time, the economy was in total free fall. As a result of actions that were taken, we've begun to climb out of that hole and now we've had 24 months--consecutive months--of positive private sector job growth, creating about 4 million jobs in the economy. We need to keep that job growth going, and that's what the Democratic alternative does. It builds on the President's proposals. In here, we have the President's jobs plan--a plan which has been sitting in front of this body since he introduced it back in September. We took some action on the payroll tax cut. That was good. But the President has also called for a major infrastructure investment to modernize our roads and our bridges. We fund that plan, as opposed to the Republican budget which, as we've heard, slashes transportation--in fact, next year by 46 percent in spending--and which independent analysts have said will cost the economy 1.3 million jobs in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in 2014. That is not the direction we should be going. We need to nurture the fragile economy. We need to deal with our budget deficits in a credible way, which this does. It takes us from deficits over 8\1/2\ percent of GDP down to under 3 percent of GDP by 2015, and sustains them. And we do it in a balanced way by asking for shared responsibility. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would just remind my colleagues that at the end of the 8 years of the Bush administration, after the tax cuts, which helped create the deficits, we ended up losing over 600,000 private sector jobs. That's the result of trickle-down economics. The last thing we want to do is go back to those policies. The Republican budget takes us back to our policies. We invest in jobs. With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, who's been focused on jobs, Ms. Pelosi.

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

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I want to start by thanking all the members of the Budget Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike. We had a very good debate in the Budget Committee. We had a good debate here on the floor. And I want to thank all our colleagues. We obviously have deep differences, but I think everybody conducted this debate in a civil manner. I also want to thank the chairman for the way he conducted the proceedings in the committee. And to all the staff, Republican and Democratic staff, I want to thank our team, headed by Tom Kahn. Many of them are here on the floor. As I think everybody knows, they've spent many, many, many late nights working on this budget. So I salute all of them as well as the folks over at the Congressional Budget Office. We obviously think that this budget proposed by our Republican colleagues is the wrong choice for America. I now yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Democratic whip, my friend, our colleague from the State of Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Yes, I would. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, our Democratic alternative invests in the President's jobs proposal, a proposal that has been sitting here in the House of Representatives since September. We reduced the deficit in a balanced and fair way. We make choices not to provide another tax break to the wealthiest but to say we need the combination of cuts and revenue, just like bipartisan commissions have done. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thought we were back to reality today instead of in the land of make-believe. Mr. Mulvaney offered an amendment yesterday that was not the President's budget. We debated that last night. I don't know why we're continuing that charade. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, as a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Parkinson's Disease, I am proud to join my colleagues in recognizing April as Parkinson's Awareness Month. It is estimated that there are between 500,000 and 1.5 million Americans living with Parkinson's disease, a chronic, progressive neurological disease, for which there is no therapy or drug to slow or halt its progression, let alone a cure. I support the federal government's continued funding for research to find better treatments and a cure for Parkinson's. I also recognize the people living with Parkinson's who participate in vital clinical trials to advance knowledge of this disease, and commend the dedication of local and regional organizations, volunteers, and millions of Americans across the country working to improve quality of life for people living with Parkinson's disease and their families.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, one thing I hope we can all agree on is that we need to protect our children and grandchildren and future generations. The question is not whether we need to do that. Of course we do. The issue is how. I keep hearing my colleagues come forward and passionately talk about that, but they're absolutely unwilling to take the balanced approach that has been recommended by bipartisan groups. Everyone that's looked at this challenge says we've got to take a combination of tough spending cuts, but we also need some revenue from closing tax loopholes and asking folks at the very top to go back to what they were paying during the Clinton administration--by the way, the last time that we had a balanced budget. And yet, despite all that talk, they don't want us to close one loophole. In fact, almost every Republican in this House has signed this pledge to Grover Norquist saying they won't cut one tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction; that they won't ask folks making $1 million to contribute any more to deficit reduction. In fact, they propose to give them another windfall tax cut. That's the choice they make, and because of that choice, they cut our investment in education for our kids. They cut investments that will strengthen our economy, help build our infrastructure so we can outcompete and outbuild and outeducate the rest of the world. That's what we need to do for the future of our children. I urge everybody to vote against this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, we'll talk more later about the Democratic alternative and how we address the deficit in a serious and credible way without doing it in a manner that provides a windfall tax break to folks at the top at the expense of everybody else. For now, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Pascrell.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Blumenauer.

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

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, the reason the Republican budget and this budget do things like end the Medicare guarantee, do things like cut deeply into education for our kids' future, do things like cut Medicaid by over $800 billion over 10 years, is because they're not asking the very wealthy to share more responsibility in reducing the deficit. In fact, they double down on tax cuts. If you see from this chart from the Nonpartisan Tax Policy Institute, simply by locking in the portion of the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, millionaires, on average--people making over a million dollars a years--will get $129,000. Then you heard talk about how they're going to drop the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. That would give people earning a million dollars over $265,000. On top of that, they say they're going to do that in a deficit- neutral manner. Well, to do that, you've got to make up $4.6 trillion in revenue loss. They're going to do it by getting rid of all those deductions. One of the biggest ones is the mortgage interest deduction that helps middle-income people. So the net result of what they're saying is more tax cuts for the folks at the very top financed by increasing the tax burden on middle- income Americans and financed by cutting important investments that help grow our economy. With that, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).