Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank our colleagues for a vigorous debate, and I would remind everybody that just a few years ago when the President was sworn in, our economy was in a total free fall. The bottom was falling out, we had negative 8 percent GDP, and over 800,000 jobs were being lost every month. And as a result of extraordinary actions that were taken, along with the tenacity of the American people, we have climbed out of that hole that we inherited. We have now had 24 months of consecutive private-sector job growth. Let's keep that growth going. The budget that the President proposed, the budget that the Democrats proposed, did that. It expanded investments in jobs. The Republican budget will cut our investment in transportation next year by 46 percent when we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry. Independent analysts have said that their budget will cost us 1 million jobs this year and cost us 2 million jobs next year. That's not what we need. The Congressional Budget Office has said that over one- third of our current deficit is because of underemployment. Why would we want to add to underemployment, as the Republican budget does? Now, in the long term, we've got to get our deficits under control. The issue is not whether we need to do that, the issue is how. As the previous speaker said, the question is the choice. Our Republican colleagues overwhelmingly have signed this pledge saying they are not willing to close one tax loophole--not one penny--for the purpose of reducing the deficit. And when you say to folks making over $1 million a year, you don't have to share any more responsibility of reducing the deficit, when you say to big oil companies we're going to keep going with the taxpayer subsidies, do you know what? You've got to take out the budget on everybody else, at the expense of seniors, at the expense of middle-income taxpayers, and at the expense of important investments in our economy. And that's what their budget does. That's why it ends the Medicare guarantee. They're proposing to give seniors a deal that's a lot worse than we have for Members of Congress--worse than the one for Members of Congress, seniors on Medicare. They cut Medicaid by $800 billion, more than one-third of the program, by 2022, putting seniors and disabled individuals at risk. They cut education investments and would allow interest rates on student loans to double this July. Those are not decisions that we make if we want a strong economy and a robust future for our children and grandchildren. So this is all about choices, and we don't think that it's bold to provide tax breaks to millionaires while you're ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors. We don't think it's courageous to protect big taxpayer giveaways to companies that ship American jobs overseas while we're cutting investments in education, science, research, and infrastructure right here at home. We don't think it's fair to provide another round of tax cuts to folks at the very top. The Tax Policy Center says it's going to be close to $400,000 on average for people making over $1 million. We don't think it's fair to do that, financing those tax cuts by increasing taxes on middle-income Americans. I would challenge our colleagues: show us how you make up for $4.6 trillion in lost revenue from dropping that tax rate without socking it to middle-income taxpayers? So far, Republican colleagues have been absolutely incapable of showing us that they're not shifting the burden to middle-income taxpayers. So, Mr. Chairman, it is all about choices. Unfortunately, we didn't pass the alternative Democratic budget. Let's not make the mistake of passing this Republican budget plan. We can do better. We can do what bipartisan groups have done, take a balanced approach, cut spending and also cut the loopholes for special interests. Let's do it in a way that the American people would say brings us together, rather than apart. So I would urge rejection of this budget. It makes the wrong choice for America. I thank the chairman, and I thank my colleagues.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could ask how much time remains?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman 15 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the comments of the member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Woodall from Georgia, but I don't think the choice the Republicans make in this budget is the right thing to do. I don't think the American people are going to think it's the right thing to do. I don't think the choice to provide another round of tax cuts for people making more than $1 million a year while ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors who have median income under $23,000 a year is the right choice; and I don't think it's the courageous choice. Now, I heard Mr. Woodall say that it doesn't change one thing, not one thing in Medicare. That's just not true. This immediately reopens the prescription drug doughnut hole. The Republican plan takes some of the savings we achieved under the Affordable Care Act for Medicare, but instead of using it like we did to help strengthen the prescription drug plan, it reopens it. It does it immediately. That is an additional $10,000 over 10 years for seniors who have high prescription drug costs. Do you know what else it does immediately? It immediately ends the preventive care services we provided under Medicare. Because we want to encourage seniors to get that early care, so we eliminated the copays. Now they've got to pay that too, immediately. Now, the gentleman said the President doesn't have a plan on Medicare. I keep having to remind my colleagues that this chart was presented by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan. And the black line is the Republican plan, and the blue line is the President's plan. The red line is projected health care costs. And the difference between the two plans is that the Republican plan puts all the risk of those rising health care costs on the seniors. And you can see that when you look at this chart. This is current Medicare. It provides constant support for the health care services received by seniors. That's the blue line. Here's the green line. This is what Members of Congress and Federal employees get. They get a real premium support. As health care prices go up, their premium support stays constant. This red line, that's what happens when you cap the support for seniors, as the Republican plan did. That red line going straight down is the same as that red line going straight up. The difference between the approaches is we say, Let's modernize Medicare to put greater focus and incentives on the value of care, not so much on the volume of care, which drives up cost. The Republican plan puts all those risks of rising health care costs on seniors. With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, someone who has been fighting for jobs, for fairness, and for protecting the Medicare guarantee, Ms. Pelosi.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The debate we're having here is not whether to reduce the deficit and the debt. We have to do that. The issue is the choices we make in the process. The President does have a budget; it does take a balanced approach. My colleagues say: Watch out. Well, watch out for the bipartisan Commissions, all of whom have recommended taking an approach that is balanced. Yes, we have to deal with the spending part. We've cut a trillion dollars. There are additional cuts in these budgets, but we should also end the special-interest tax breaks, and we should ask folks at the very top to take a little bit more responsibility. Here are the choices that are made in the Republican budget. Here is a very simple one. This is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent, $261 billion. Meanwhile, they cut $810 billion from Medicaid. Again, two-thirds of Medicaid spending goes to seniors and individuals with disabilities. That wasn't enough. They apparently are doubling down on tax breaks that benefit the folks at the very top. This is the amount of tax break millionaires will get from continuing the Bush tax cuts. They've added over $260,000 in additional average tax breaks for people making over a million dollars. They say they're going to make that up somehow. I'll tell you how they're going to make it up: by increasing the tax burden on middle-income Americans. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished assistant Democratic leader, who has been looking out for average working Americans his entire career, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I would point out again, just in response to my friend Mr. Flake, that this is the chart that was used by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, showing the President's plan on Medicare and the Republican plan on Medicare, both of which have cost containment over the next coming decades. The difference is how you achieve that cost difference. The difference is that the Republican plan offloads all the risks of what they project to be increasing health care costs on to seniors because, unlike the plan that Members of Congress have, which, as I explained, provides a constant 42 percent premium support share, the Republican plan has the contribution for Medicare rapidly declining relative to the costs of health care, which puts all that risk on seniors. With that, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Democratic whip, my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady from California.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Education Committee, Mr. Miller.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to Mr. Welch of Vermont, a gentleman who has been focused on fiscal responsibility.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, there is no doubt that we have to reduce the deficit and debt for the good of all of our children and grandchildren. The debate today is about how we do it and whether we do it in a balanced way. I would point out the Congressional Budget Office has told us that $2 trillion of the debt over the last 10 years is attributed to the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. We keep hearing today about the need, which we all agree, to reduce the deficit, but we still have not heard a single one of our Republican colleagues say that we should reduce one tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit so we can deal with this in a balanced manner. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the distinguished ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Markey.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a former member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, the President's budget and the Democratic alternative also get rid of the sequester, but we replace that with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction through a balanced way because we think it's more important to protect that defense spending than it is to protect a lot of the special interest loopholes. Here's the statement from General Martin Dempsey, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he says, with respect to what this budget will do: It's a force that's prepared to secure global access and respond to global contingencies. It's a military that can win any conflict anywhere. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not talking about the Republican budget, talking about the President's budget. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the remaining time. The debate we've had this afternoon is not whether we should reduce the deficit, whether we should reduce the debt, but how we do it, the choices that we make in reaching that goal. We support what has been described as a balanced approach, the same approach taken by every bipartisan group that has looked at this challenge. That approach says, yes, we need to make cuts. But we should also cut special interest tax loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit. We should also ask folks at the very high end of the income ladder to go back to the same tax rates they were paying during the Clinton administration. Our colleagues reject that balanced approach. I have not heard one of our Republican colleagues say that they're prepared to take one penny from closing a tax loophole, one penny from getting rid of an oil subsidy for the purpose of deficit reduction. When you do that, when you say we're not going to ask the wealthiest to share a greater responsibility, you have to take your budget cuts out on everyone and everything else. That's why they slashed the transportation funding next year by 46 percent, kicking the economy when it's down. That's why they end the Medicare guarantee for seniors. That's why they reopen the prescription-drug doughnut hole. That's why their budget cuts Medicaid by a third, by the year 2022, in the name of repairing the social safety net. That's not repairing the social safety net. That's blowing a hole in protections for the most vulnerable Americans. That is not a choice the American people want to make. The American people would choose a balanced approach. They would not choose another round of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of seniors, at the expense of middle-income Americans, at the expense of important investments. They would reject that approach. I urge my colleagues to reject that approach and adopt the balanced Democratic alternative. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Again, we can stand here all we want and play let's pretend. The reality is that the budget that's before us is not the President's budget. As I indicated earlier, the Democratic alternative later takes the framework of the President's budget and adopts some of the policies of the President's budget. We don't accept every single spending proposal or spending cut which is laid out in great detail here. But that presents a framework. And I should say to my colleagues that one of the things you would not know from reading this Republican version of the President's proposal is that, unlike the Republican budget, the President's plan does not end the Medicare guarantee. It does not extend tax breaks for the highest income Americans. It doesn't provide another windfall tax cut for those Americans financed by increasing taxes on middle-income Americans. It doesn't cut the transportation budget by 46 percent next year, at a time when we have high unemployment in the construction industry. The President's budget doesn't do that. The Republican budget does do that. We will later present that balanced approach that says, in order to tackle our deficits, we have to make some cuts, some tough cuts. Congress has already made $1 trillion in cuts. We have more cuts. But we should also close some of those special interest tax loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit, because if we don't do that, it means that we're providing--essentially asking nothing of the very wealthy, and that means we have to reduce the deficit at the expense of everybody else in America. So let's end the charade. Let's end this game of make-believe. This is not the President's budget, and unless there's some of our colleagues who want to play fantasyland, I suggest we get down to reality, and that's why we're opposing this document, the Mulvaney amendment. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from South Carolina is prepared to close, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.