Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Let's talk a little bit about energy policy. One of the things you wouldn't know from the document that Mr. Mulvaney put forward claiming it's the President's budget is that the President actually provides the resources to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to help police speculators in the oil market. Because what we're seeing today is that, because of conditions around the world, a lot of those are being taken advantage of by people who are engaged in excessive speculation on the oil market, driving it up. But the Republican budget doesn't want the cop on the beat. The Republican budget doesn't want to police the speculators because, you know what, they're just doing fine. But again, Mr. Mulvaney's budget--what he pretends is the President's budget--you wouldn't know that. But if you looked in the President's real budget, you would know that kind of thing. That's why this exercise is such a farce. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am opposed.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the gentlelady for her leadership tonight. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And I'm opposed for a simple reason. This document filed by Mr. Mulvaney is not the President's budget. And it's being portrayed as a very misleading--it was a very misleading presentation of the President's budget. This is the President's budget. If you look at all the other budgets presented today, you'll find numbers and you'll find policy statements that describe the policies behind the budget. The thing Mr. Mulvaney filed--no policy. In fact, he just said the President's policy raises gas taxes, I believe? That's just a false statement. The other issue is why you have a number for revenue in the President's budget. You mentioned that there was a revenue number. The President never pretended otherwise. The President's budget takes a balanced approach to deficit reduction. It makes cuts, and it raises revenue. Let's talk about how he raises revenue. He raises revenue, in part, by getting rid of subsidies on the big oil companies. We think at a time of record profits, we don't need to have taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies. Our Republican colleagues, almost every one of them, have signed this pledge to Grover Norquist saying they won't get rid of one oil subsidy or one tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction. Well, the President thinks we need a balanced approach to deficit reduction. Now, you wouldn't know from reading Mr. Mulvaney's document, what he puts in place as the President's budget, that that's how the President raises revenue. You wouldn't know from Mr. Mulvaney's document that the President also asks the very top 2 percent of taxpayers to go back to paying the same top rate they were during the Clinton administration, a time when the economy was booming, because the President thinks we need to take a balanced approach, again, a combination of revenues and spending cuts, because the President believes, and I agree, that if you do it the way the Republicans do it, without asking the folks at the very top to share some responsibility, it means you deal with the budget at the expense of everybody else, at the expense of seniors, at the expense of middle-income Americans, and at the expense of important investments in our economy like investments in transportation. Their budget cuts transportation next year by 46 percent at a time when we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry. Their budget puts the brakes on the budding economic growth. So, Mr. Chairman, let's end this charade. The gentleman said he wanted to get beyond politics. This is politics at its absolute worst, presenting something as the President's budget without the policy detail, without the explanation to the American people about what's in the President's budget. As a result, he presents a very misleading version of what the President has asked us to do. In fact, the Democratic alternative that we will propose later adopts the general framework of the President's budget. We don't adopt every single proposal he makes in here, but we take the general framework. The difference is we have those policy statements, and we make it clear that we want to get rid of the subsidies for the big oil companies at a time they're making record profits. We make it clear that we want millionaires, people making a million dollars a year, to go back to paying what they were during the Clinton administration. We make that clear in our alternative. So let's not play this political charade. We're going to have the Democratic alternative that, as I said, takes the framework of the President's proposal. Our Republican colleagues will have an opportunity to vote against that. But this is not the President's budget, and let's not pretend it is. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I guess we're going to spend the next I don't know how many minutes talking about something that's not the President's budget. It's an attempt to be misleading about what the President's budget does because it leaves out all the content, leaves out the substance. You look at the Republican budget, they've got a lot of sections on policy. You look at the other alternatives that are being presented, they have alternatives and policy statements. This is a bunch of numbers without the explanation. Now, do the Democrats, for example, think that the President invested enough in his budget in LIHEAP, the low-income energy program for low- income individuals. We actually have a majority in our caucus that thinks the President should have put a little more into that. But that's only the kind of detail you would know if you went through the President's budget, not this thing that Mr. Mulvaney claims is the President's budget, which it's just not. So just to be clear: This is not the President's budget, and therefore it obviously is a political gimmick. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, my friend from South Carolina wants to play make-believe today, but the reality is that this is not the President's budget, and we've already shown you the President's budget. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the chairman. I want to close where the gentlelady began, which is on the economy and on jobs. As this chart shows, when President Obama was sworn in, we were losing over 800,000 jobs a month. But because of actions taken by the President and the Congress and because of the tenacity of the American people and small businesses, we were able to stop the free fall and begin to climb out of that hole. We are now at 24 consecutive months of positive private sector job growth. There were close to 4 million jobs created in that period. We need to sustain that recovery, not put the brakes on it. The Republican proposal unfortunately puts the brakes on it. I'll give you just one example. Next year they would cut our investment in transportation in their budget by 46 percent when we have about 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry. That's putting the brakes on. We hear from our colleagues that the only way to deal with the budget deficits is to cut, cut, cut. We propose a balanced approach. We do ask that we close some of those tax loopholes. We do ask that folks making a million dollars a year go back to paying the rates that they were in the Clinton administration. Let's see what happened in the economy back then. What this shows is during the Clinton years, 20.8 million jobs were created. After President Bush took office, they lowered the tax rates. There was a net of 653,000 jobs lost. By the way, in 2001, just before the tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy, that was the last time we balanced the budget. We balanced the budget, and we had great job growth. That's why we propose a balanced approach. The issue here is not whether we reduce the deficit, not whether we reduce the debt. It's how. Yes, we have to make spending cuts. I hear colleagues on the Republican side coming down here and saying you can't do this all on the revenue side. We get that. But you know what? If you do it without asking the folks at the very top to pay a penny, by closing loopholes and getting rid of tax breaks, what does it mean? It means everybody else pays the consequences. Those decisions to support the wealthy and not ask for shared responsibility come at the expense of our seniors and you end the Medicare guarantee and slash Medicaid by $800 billion. It comes at the expense of middle-income taxpayers, because not only are you locking in the Bush tax cuts for the folks at the top, you're dropping the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. That's another over-$200,000 tax break to people making a million dollars a year. You say you're going to pay for it. You know how it's going to happen? It's going to happen by increasing taxes on middle-income Americans. That's how you're going to finance it. I've not seen a proposal. Show me a piece of paper that says it won't be taken out on middle-income taxpayers. Mr. Chairman, there's a better approach than the Republican approach. It's the balanced approach. It's the approach supported by bipartisan groups, and it's the approach that we will propose in our amendment. I again thank the gentlelady and thank the Chairman.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I seek recognition to speak on this important issue.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the chairman of the Budget Committee has mentioned a number of times this PolitiFact. I want to read from what PolitiFact said with respect to this. He said that it's true that the term ``terminate'' Medicare, which some had used, was an overstatement. No doubt about it. Just like, apparently, a couple of years ago they've said--what I've heard from a lot of my colleagues that the Affordable Care Act was a ``government takeover of health care.'' I've heard that a lot from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That was the big PolitiFact so-called ``lie of the year'' a couple of years ago. So let's just be clear. But this is the important part. It says: If Democrats had just slightly tweaked their statements, they would be accurate. They go on to point out that, for example, when people said the plan last year would privatize Medicare, that was true. And that President Obama was also more precise with his words saying that the Medicare proposal ``would voucherize the program and you potentially have senior citizens paying 10,000 or more.'' They didn't say that was false. What we have said, what I have said very carefully all along is that it ends the Medicare guarantee. And I firmly believe it ends the Medicare guarantee for this reason, for this reason right here: this is the current Medicare plan support for seniors in terms of the percent that they have to pay, that blue line, steady support. Green line demonstrates steady support that Members of Congress get from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan. Red line is what happens when you put seniors into the private health care market but you don't allow their premium support to rise with the projected rise in health care costs. Red line, down. I think that does end the Medicare guarantee. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I keep hearing my Republican colleagues say that their plan will provide seniors with affordable premiums for their health care services. I just keep asking myself why it is that their plan gives seniors on Medicare a much worse deal and a lot less support than the plan Members of Congress have under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. That is a real premium support plan. That is a plan where the premium support keeps pace with rising health care costs. So if you're talking about how to deal with Medicare, it seems to me that you should take the approach that we have taken, that the President has taken, where you modernize the system, you change the incentives to put focus on the value of care, on the quality of care rather than the quantity of care. We're already starting up accountable care organizations. We're already starting up different methods of delivering care and different payment systems. That's a very different approach than putting the burden on seniors and putting the risk on seniors. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady who represents the Nation's capital so well, Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland, put up a chart with the red showing the rising costs of Medicare and said the President has no plan. Well, I wish the gentleman had looked at the chart of the chairman of the Budget Committee. We've seen it a couple of times today. It shows the black line being the House Republican trajectory, the blue line being the President's plan to contain costs. The difference again being that the Republican proposal puts all the risks of rising health care costs onto seniors, whereas the President's plan talks about changing the delivery system in a way to encourage the value of care, focus on the value of care, rather than the volume of care. I would only point out that we keep hearing about the IPAB. The reality is that anything they would propose, number one, by law cannot ration care. But number two is subject to review and a vote by Members of Congress, the people in this body. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin). (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would just urge my friend Mr. Price to again look at the chart presented by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, which makes it clear that we have different paths, different approaches, with respect to containing costs. Yet, at the end of the day, the trajectories are the same. I'll say again that if Republicans think the notion of the premium support plan--the voucher plan, whatever you want to call it--which doesn't rise with health care costs, is such a good deal for seniors, why are they giving themselves a different deal in the health care plan for Members of Congress? I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin). (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chair, somebody who has said let's fix this in an adult way, a balanced way, the way other bipartisan groups have done is Ms. McCollum from Minnesota. I yield the gentlelady 2 minutes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), who has been fighting for education, among other things.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, the gentlelady who just spoke is correct that under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan that Members of Congress are on that there is a 72 percent for the premium. That's exactly what that steady green line is. And as health care costs go up, the gentlelady will continue through the congressional plan to get a steady amount of support under the Federal health plan that Members of Congress have. Under the Republican budget plan, in fact, that support drops steadily and deeply, which is why it is not premium support. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Blumenauer.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If the gentleman will yield, let the record show that in a moment of genuine bipartisanship, I gave the chairman's chart back to him for his own use.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman another 10 seconds.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I think we should engage in tax reform, but I don't think we need to wait for tax reform to get rid of some of the subsidies to the Big Oil companies or to get rid of the subsidies for corporate jets. We can do that now as part of a balanced approach. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the newest member of the Budget Committee--we're pleased to have her on the committee--the gentlelady from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, the difference between the President's plan and the Republican budget, the difference between the Democratic alternative and the Republican budget, is that we take a balanced approach. I think everybody understands that spending cuts have to be part of the solution. This Congress acted last summer, cut $1 trillion out of the budget. But the President and the Democratic alternative also understand what bipartisan groups all understand, which is that the only credible way to reduce our deficits is through a combination of spending cuts and cutting some of the tax breaks to special interests and asking millionaires to pay more. I keep hearing our Republican colleagues come to the floor lamenting the large deficits and debt which we all agree we need to get under control and then refusing to cut one special interest loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit, asking a millionaire to contribute one more penny for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Now with respect to the issue of Medicare, the reason it's not premium support is, it doesn't provide constant support to the senior on Medicare. Over time, seniors' purchasing power of this voucher will become less and less while the costs go up and up. I would point out, again, that Members of Congress have for themselves a plan, this green line, where the purchasing power of their health plan stays constant, even as health prices increase. But this red line here is what they would do to seniors on Medicare. Now I've heard it said a couple of times now that the President allows Medicare to go bankrupt. Mr. Chairman, here is a chart that the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, presented in the Budget Committee. The black line here is the trajectory that they claim for their plan in terms of cost containment. The blue line is what they acknowledge the President calls for. As you can see, the tracks are very different. This red line is projected cost increase by the Congressional Budget Office. The difference between the approaches is that the Republican plan puts the risk of being wrong here on the senior, whereas the plan we put forward says we need to change the incentive structures, to change the incentives in a way so that providers provide more cost-efficient care rather than putting that risk on the senior. That is the fundamental difference. And AARP, the largest organization of seniors in the country, agrees with what I have just said. They say in their letter: The premium support method described in the proposal, unlike private plan options that currently exist in Medicare, would likely ``price out'' traditional Medicare as a viable option, thus rendering the choice of traditional Medicare as a false promise. They go on to say that the purchasing power of this voucher will not keep pace with health care costs. Let's not put that risk on seniors. And with that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Castor) who has been just tenacious in making sure that we deal with these issues in a fair and balanced way.