Chris Van Hollen

American families don't have the luxury of saying if we don't get things 100 percent our way, we won't pay our family bills. I reserve the balance of my time.

I would urge my colleagues to look at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the impact of the Republican budget on senior citizens on Medicare. Essentially what they do is give seniors a raw deal compared to what Members of Congress…

We believe, as the President said, the best way for us to balance the budget is to get together and hammer out a deal sooner rather than later.

I've already indicated that there is a conversation to be had with respect to what is a reasonable approach, but that is absolutely not what we're dealing with in this particular bill as we've debated.

We pass a constitutional amendment with the provisions that you have in here. And so it will be a test today whether you can get the two-thirds to change the Constitution in the ways you're talking about. {time} 1740

The point is, this bill says you can't continue to pay the bills unless, between now and August 2 or whenever----

Here's the question. As you know, this requires that we later pass a constitutional amendment. In fact, between now and August 2 we have to pass a constitutional amendment which, of course, requires two-thirds in the House. We'll find out…

I still fail to see how it helps our kids and helps our seniors to write into the Constitution of the United States a bias in favor of cutting Medicare and cutting Social Security and cutting education before cutting special interest tax…

I would point out that when Ronald Reagan was President, he raised the debt ceiling 17 times and specifically wrote to the Congress, saying that failure to pay our bills would jeopardize the creditworthiness and trustworthiness of the…

It does not throw Americans a lifeline to write into the Constitution of the United States a provision that creates a preference for cutting Medicare and Social Security over cutting subsidies for oil companies. I reserve the balance of my…

That's right. A few years ago during the Clinton administration when they took a balanced approach to deficit reduction, we did run surpluses. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I would remind my colleagues that this provision that they're talking about, the constitutional proposal that came out of the Judiciary Committee, would prohibit the Congress from balancing the budget at 13 percent of GDP expenditures. It…

Again, the choice is not whether we put in place a plan to reduce the deficit and balance the budget. The issue is how we do that. That is the difference here. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Once again, the President had a plan to reduce the deficit by about $4 trillion over 10 years--$3 in cuts, $1 in revenue. Our Republican colleagues walked away from the table because they didn't want $1 of deficit reduction from closing…

I would hazard a guess that Thomas Jefferson would not want to write into the Constitution of the United States anti- democratic provisions that said you need two-thirds in order to close special interest tax loopholes for the purpose of…

This is a time for choosing. We have to reduce our deficit. We have to get the budget in the balance. The question is, how we do this? And we believe that it is a corruption of the Constitution to write into the Constitution itself a…

I would just ask my Republican colleagues to consider why they want to write a provision in the Constitution of the United States that would make it harder to shut down a special interest tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the…

I would again remind my colleagues that the last time we were running a budget surplus was during the years of the Clinton administration. During that period of time our spending was at a level that was higher than the limitation in here…

I'm happy to work with the gentleman on that enterprise, but that's very different than what you're talking about.

Let me just say this. I would not want to prevent the United States from being able to respond in cases of war, in national emergency.

I will yield on your time, Mr. Goodlatte, and I'm happy when you have some time to do that. In fact, I think you're going to want an opportunity, because the gentleman from Virginia was asked at the hearing on his proposal for a…

I thank my colleague. The question we're facing here is what is the best way forward. We all understand we have to have a budget deficit plan that's predictable and addresses that issue, but why in the world would we adopt a one- sided…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm tempted to reserve my time and yield it back to the other---- Announcement by the Acting Chair The Acting CHAIR. The Chair notes a disturbance in the gallery which is in contravention of the laws and rules of…

I thank my colleagues. As I said, nobody doubts that every person in this Chamber loves this country and wants to do the right thing. Announcement by the Acting Chair The Acting CHAIR. The Chair notes a disturbance in the gallery, which is…

We all agree we have to act now to put in place a plan to reduce our deficit. Announcement by the Acting Chair The Acting CHAIR. The Chair notes a disturbance in the gallery which is in contravention of the laws and rules of the House. The…