Chris Van Hollen: “Exactly. And reclaiming my time, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it says. But you tell the President what his…”

“Exactly. And reclaiming my time, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it says. But you tell the President what his plan has to do. You tell the President that his plan cannot include one penny of revenue for the purpose of reducing the deficit. In other words, you say the President's plan has got to look like your plan. So, Mr. Speaker, the issue here is not whether the President has a plan or not. He does have a plan. Our Republican colleagues don't like it because it says that it's more important to protect defense spending and protect domestic spending like NIH than it is to protect special interest tax loopholes. And I see the chairman of the Armed Services Committee on the floor, and I respect him greatly. That's the position he took last October. Here's what he said when he was asked: ``If it came that I had only two choices, one was a tax increase and one was a cut in defense over and above where we already are, I would go to strengthen defense.'' That is the President's position. That's the President's position, Mr. West. He said we need to take a balanced approach to reducing the deficit. We need to combine cuts. But we also should end special interest tax breaks for the big oil companies. George Bush himself said when you've got oil above $50 a barrel, you don't need these ridiculous incentives to keep them drilling. And we should ask very wealthy individuals, frankly, to pay the same tax rate that the people who work for them do; the same effective tax rate.…”