Chris Van Hollen: “Let me start on the points of agreement. We agree with this piece of legislation. As we said, it passed the Budget…”

“Let me start on the points of agreement. We agree with this piece of legislation. As we said, it passed the Budget Committee unanimously. What it does is ask for some more detailed information on the impact of the across-the-board sequester scheduled to take place in January. The Senate also agrees with that. Let's make no mistake, there was an amendment on the Senate side, a bipartisan amendment by Senator Patty Murray of Washington State and Senator McCain, asking for additional information. There was also agreement that we don't need more information to understand that the across-the-board sequester cuts would have a very negative impact on the economy and on defense and on important nondefense investments that are important to the American people. The issue really is what are we going to do about it. We have proposed an alternative in this House. We proposed an alternative in the Budget Committee, and it didn't pass. We asked for this whole House to have a chance to vote on an alternative that had a balanced approach that included cuts, but also additional revenues from closing tax breaks and loopholes, and we were denied that opportunity for a vote over here. Let's be very clear about what Senator Reid has said and what the President has said on a number of these issues, both the tax issue, as well as the sequestration issue that we're debating today.…”