Chris Van Hollen: “I actually had been prepared to come to the floor of this House and say this was a refreshing moment, that this was…”

“I actually had been prepared to come to the floor of this House and say this was a refreshing moment, that this was going to be a moment of bipartisanship. I commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) for finally offering a balanced plan to reduce our long-term deficit and a plan that will make sure our economy grows rather than offering a plan that results in over 750,000 fewer American jobs by the end of this year, and I hope that the gentleman will demonstrate his sincerity in the support of his own bill by voting for it. We will be able to tell whether this is simply some kind of stunt or a genuine effort. Mr. Chairman, let me say, with respect to the comments about the President's budget, I think everyone in this country knows that this Congress was here until January 2 of this year, trying to work out a compromise to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, and until we'd resolved that, the President had no idea how much revenue would be available for the budget. I think most families recognize that you need to know how much revenue is available as you put together a budget, number one. Number two, we've been lurching from one manufactured crisis to another. The sequester. You need to know how the sequester is going to turn out before you know how much money is going to be available for government agencies.…”