Chris Van Hollen: “I, too, rise to thank Senator Toomey for his distinguished public service. I first got to know Pat Toomey back in 2011.…”

“I, too, rise to thank Senator Toomey for his distinguished public service. I first got to know Pat Toomey back in 2011. For those who have been around here a long time or at least a medium amount of time, you may remember the budget impasse in 2011 between the House and the Senate. At that time, there were constant threats of government shutdowns. There was, of course, the issue of the debt ceiling. What finally happened was that a piece of legislation or an agreement was reached that said: We are going to create what was then called a supercommittee to try to work out some of these budget issues, and if the supercommittee did not reach an agreement, then this Rube Goldberg machine would take effect, providing automatic budget cuts both to defense and nondefense spending. Everybody agreed that having this automatic sequester take place would not serve the best interests of the country and hoped that this supercommittee would be able to come up with a solution. Senator Toomey was new to the Senate then, but because of his great expertise and because of the fact that he was trusted by Leader McConnell, he was appointed as one of the very few people--about three or four people from the Senate--to participate on the supercommittee, and I was appointed by Speaker Pelosi to serve on the supercommittee.…”