Chris Van Hollen: “It's a budget resolution without a budget number. Now we've heard a lot of talk about what happened last year. What this…”

“It's a budget resolution without a budget number. Now we've heard a lot of talk about what happened last year. What this budget resolution relates to is 2011. In fact, this body voted last year on a Budget Enforcement Act. I have it right here in my hand. And it set budget ceilings. It had a real number. Some people voted for it, some people voted against it, but this body did what it always does when it makes decisions of this magnitude. We took accountability for it. Now you have a resolution that violates the pledge of transparency because it doesn't have a single number in it, and it violates the pledge of accountability because you're asking every other Member of this body to contract out his or her vote to one person. This isn't about a particular individual. It's about all of us taking responsibility for a major decision. And what this resolution does is contracts out that responsibility. It doesn't have a number. We don't know if it's going to be $100 billion. We don't know if it's going to be $80 billion.”