Chris Van Hollen

Instead of a trickle-down economics, which you had for 8 years--...we got a trickle up. I prefer trickle up.

You have got the job loss, 750,000 jobs between now and the end of the month.

We should get rid of some of those [tax breaks], and we should get rid of some of those for the purpose of deficit reduction in a balanced way.

We asked higher-income individuals to begin to contribute to reducing the debt over the long term.

The American people didn't buy that in the last election. They just simply did not buy it.

You have created a nemesis. You have created a situation where folks, you want folks to think that you want to protect their tax dollar...

Seven hundred and fifty thousand jobs between now at the end of this fiscal calendar year 2013, right?

We asked higher income individuals to begin to contribute to reducing the debt over the long term.

Arbitrarily, trying to squeeze all of that into the 10-year window, which apparently was what the Speaker had agreed to do as part of extending the 3-month debt ceiling, is not good economics.

I would also point out that Speaker Boehner, during those discussions with the President, said he didn't want to increase rates, but he could raise $800 billion by closing these tax loopholes and breaks and getting rid of these tax…

If we agree, Mr. Chairman, that those are just different forms of spending in the Tax Code, it seems to me we should be willing to help eliminate some of those tax expenditures for the purpose of reducing the deficit in a balanced way.

It is spending through the Tax Code by saying to certain interest, sometimes based on policies we agree, there is consensus on, sometimes not, that that is revenue that will not come into the Treasury to help reduce the deficit.

We passed the $600 billion tax increase focused on folks at the very high end of the income scale, but as the President pointed out in the talks with the Speaker, his goal was actually to achieve $1.2 trillion revenue.

It would be absolutely counterproductive in terms of the long-term competitiveness, let alone the health of our people, to have those kind of cuts take place.

I have never understood the logic as to how cuts to defense... somehow do not cost jobs.

Unemployment would soar. It would set back progress on the economy.

We hope we can have an opportunity to have an up or down vote, Mr. Chairman, on the plan that we've put forward.

We hope we can have an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote, Mr. Chairman, on the plan that we have put forward.

We are talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs lost this year if we don't replace the sequester.

The result of that legislation was to make sure that we did not see a sharp increase in taxes on middle-income Americans, but we asked higher-income individuals to begin to contribute to reducing the debt over the long term.

I want to join the chairman in welcoming Dr. Elmendorf, and thank you and your team at the Congressional Budget Office for the professional work that you do.

We should be working overtime to prevent that kind of job loss.

I actually think we should have phased that out rather than having gone cold turkey, but the point is, a big chunk of that number had to do with lost revenue from a payroll tax cut that was supported by a great majority in this body.

Again, what this amendment does is ask the President, when he submits the budget, to provide certain information about mandatory spending and means-tested spending. In fact, the President already does this in his budget. I have in my hand…

I think it is very useful to let everybody in the country know exactly what the debt and deficit will be on a per capita basis. We in Congress of course can do the math. I think it's no problem asking the President to run that calculation…