Chris Van Hollen

So here's the point. So you're going to create a document for the American people that says, hey, we're going to be spending this much in year 10 for veterans when we know that that's not true. We know right now, in fact, you've just said…

I hear what you're saying with veterans. Absolutely true, on a bipartisan basis, we understand we're going to make sure we support the veterans and we're going to make sure they get the cost-of-living increase. And the reality is, you…

I refer the gentleman to the bill, the piece of the document I've referenced several times already. This kind of work is done. What you're asking for here is to, again, leave off part of the equation, for example, the recovery bill. The…

The gentleman's mistaken. I mean, we do get analyses now with respect to the economic impact. There's a provision in the House rules that I referenced earlier that asked for that, and in fact, Joint Tax has done exactly that. The figures I…

I just have to emphasize again, I already read from the portion of the bill that says we want economic analyses of major pieces of legislation except from the Committee on Appropriations. Again, transportation and infrastructure…

The last point I would make is that it's very possible the Senate will not take up the piece of legislation that the House passed yesterday because many of them may not want to punish Federal employees. At the same time, this provision…

I thank my colleague, Mr. Hastings. Before I say a word about the legislation which Members of Congress would have an opportunity to vote on if we defeat the previous question, I just want to say a word about the bills that are the subject…

We hope that all of you, and the administration and like, will look for alternative ways to strengthen our economy.

Failure to extend unemployment compensation for millions of Americans who are out of work through no fault of their own, whether failure to do that would be a drag on what is already very fragile economic growth.

You can do things at the same time, but if you undermine the fragile economy, as the IMF, as you indicated, has warned is being done with certain fiscal policies in Europe, that just creates an even bigger hole.

I want to be very clear; I do not want anyone to interpret me saying anything other than that this Congress has a very difficult and important job to address the long-term fiscal sustainability of our federal budget.

The Recovery Act helped save or create up to 3 million jobs in the year 2010.

To deprive you of the tools necessary to boost employment would be a huge mistake.

The question is not whether we should do that. The question is how we do that.

We need to come up with a predictable, stable way to reduce our deficits and debt.

The measures taken by the Federal Reserve...averted 'an extraordinarily severe downturn, perhaps a great depression.'

We must use all the tools at our disposal to help put people back to work.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Dr. Bernanke.

The fact is that the CBO said that the Recovery Act helped save or create up to 3 million jobs in the year 2010.

One trillion of that is accounted for by the tax cuts for the folks at the very top, and if you returned those tax rates to where they were during the Clinton administration, a period of great economic growth, that would be $1 trillion of…

It shows that the economy remains very fragile, it also shows that it is slowly recovering.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I want to join the chairman in welcoming you, Dr. Elmendorf.

I think all of you know well the issues that have been debated in the House.

We will either have to lay off or have an across-the-board pay cut I believe of 6.4 percent.

At some point in time, we have to stop deferring maintenance and actually have to try and restore this Capitol.