Chris Van Hollen: “At CPAC, which is actually--they met over here in my State of Maryland. That is what they are doing. They are taking a…”

“At CPAC, which is actually--they met over here in my State of Maryland. That is what they are doing. They are taking a chain saw, and they are taking a chain saw to Departments that help our veterans. These are people who care for our veterans, and our veterans are being especially hard-hit, including when they did these firings--arbitrary firings, right?--of probationary employees, and veterans were saying: Why are we being hit so hard? The White House spokesperson said: Perhaps they are not fit to have a job at the moment. That was the response from one of the White House spokespersons, as if the individuals who served our country in the military were not fit to serve our government as civilians. That is the kind of attitude we have got. We just learned today that the RIFs--the reduction-in-force letters-- were received by the folks in the Department of Health and Human Services. So these are people who help with the public health of all Americans. And they do important work at FDA, or the Food and Drug Administration. They make sure that the foods we eat and the medicines we take are safe and that they do what they say they are going to do in the case of medicines. They do work at NIH, the National Institutes of Health, to develop cures and treatments for diseases that hit every American family, and they are cutting there. They are cutting in these places not for government efficiency but to create what they believe is the space for tax cuts for the very rich.…”