Chris Van Hollen: “I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chairman, again, just to put all this into perspective, I appreciate the…”

“I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chairman, again, just to put all this into perspective, I appreciate the sort of newfound vigor with which our Republican colleagues are approaching this issue. I would just remind them that, in the budget they brought to the floor in the last 2 years, it did not balance, according to the CBO, until 2040. Even then, if you read what the Congressional Budget Office said, it wasn't as a result of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of their policies; it was simply based on assumptions that our Republican colleagues provided to the CBO. {time} 1000 So the real question here is: How do we reduce our deficits in a way that does not hurt the economy right now but does make sure that, as the economy improves, public spending and deficit spending does not squeeze out private investment? Actually, for the last couple of years, the problem has been the opposite. We have seen less private investment, and so the moneys the Federal Government has spent have been very important to helping the economy from going into free fall. But there's no doubt that we have to come up with a balanced approach to dealing with this issue in the outyears, and that's where the debate lies, in how we should do that.…”