Chris Van Hollen

He does have the expertise to take on this important responsibility at this time, and I am absolutely confident that, if confirmed, he will serve our country admirably and well in this position.

These are individuals who want to work, they are out there looking for jobs, and really through no fault of their own unable to find it.

I am very worried about individuals who are long-term unemployed. We have over 4 million long-term unemployed Americans right now.

I was pleased with Neera Tanden's nomination to be Director of OMB.

The Executive branch has a role in budget consideration, but as you know, once Congress has spoken it is imperative that the administration, any administration, follow the law with respect to those decisions.

I associate myself with Senator Kaine's comments on the moral imperative here, the value statement.

The stress and the anxiety of so many parents struggling to make ends meet... has only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Let us be mindful when we look at economic indicators and whether the economy is doing well or not.

One of the big issues we are seeing, actually, is some of these FinTech lenders using the last Administration's rent-a-bank rules to actually evade some of the State caps that are trying designed to avoid predatory lending.

I appreciate that. My hope is the Fed releases its numbers going forward. In addition to the aggregate average numbers, you also continue to provide us with the impact on lower-wage individuals.

I see that the Fed has accelerated its timetable a little bit to 2023. If you can move even faster, all the better.

I often give the example that if Jeff Bezos had moved to Baltimore City last year, the per capita income of Baltimore City would have gone from $53,000 per person to $175,000 per person, even though nobody was better off individually.

It requires a fiscal response.

I am a strong proponent of the $25 billion rental assistance provision that was pushed very hard by Senator Brown and myself.

Well, thank you, and please thank your members. As you say, nobody should have to put their life at risk to do their job in transit, helping other people get to and from work, and that was true--that is true, of course, during the…

I strongly endorse the comments just made by Senator Warren with respect to the urgency of increasing the minimum wage.

This was an effort to overturn the election. I mean, he timed this on January 6th for this specific purpose of sending a mob to prevent the counting of the votes so he could stay in office.

I think the Budget Committee can be a central place for debating and discussing and acting on the big issues of our day.

We have 4 million Americans long-term unemployed, and I am worried as the economy does recover that we do not leave millions of people behind.

So I hope as we debate these issues going forward we will remember that.

This is one of the reasons why it is necessary that we take bold action with the American Rescue Plan.

The thing we are lacking most is political will.

We are going to need you front and center here now to make sure that we hit our goals under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement for 2025.

I would like to get your commitment here today to work with us to address this downwind air pollution issue.

We don't want to leave any community behind, as you say.