Chris Van Hollen: “There's no doubt that it's a priority of the American people, 72 percent of the American people, to reduce the deficit.…”

“There's no doubt that it's a priority of the American people, 72 percent of the American people, to reduce the deficit. We need to reduce the deficit. In fact, in the last election, both candidates talked about their plans for how to reduce that deficit in a smart and measured way. The American people spoke, and they said they preferred the balanced approach that the President has laid out that includes a combination of cuts. And, by the way, we did more than $1.5 trillion of cuts through the combination of the Budget Control Act and the supplementals in the last 2 or 3 years. We've already done that. We need to keep making more cuts. And, in fact, our substitute proposal includes additional cuts. But in the last election, the American people also said that we should close some of these tax breaks for special interests and very wealthy people. And yet our Republican colleagues have taken the position, the ironclad position, that you can't close or eliminate one of those tax breaks that their Presidential candidate and Vice Presidential candidate talked about if you want to use that for the purpose of reducing the deficit. You can't do it. So, yes, we need to reduce the deficit. The President has a plan to do it. He just doesn't do it the way our Republican colleagues would do it, which is by whacking Social Security and Medicaid, and by shortchanging important investments in our education and in our kids' future.…”