Van Hollen Speaks on the House Floor Against the GOP Debt Limit Resolution of Disapproval

Washington, DC - Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, spoke on the House floor today against the debt limit resolution of disapproval. Video of the speech is available here and the transcript is below.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I thank my colleague, Mr. Levin. You know, day after day, month after month, we hear Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, come to the floor of this House and say we've got to do more on jobs, we've got to make sure that we get this fragile economy moving again. Unfortunately, while we say those things in this body, we haven't yet taken up the President's jobs initiative that he presented to this Congress last September. We’ve taken little bits and pieces here and there. We’ve had two months now on the payroll tax cut. That's good news. I hope we can get the rest of it. But the rest of it has been absolutely ignored. But at least people said they wanted to focus on job creation and getting the economy moving again. And what's incredible about today is we have our Republican colleagues advocating a course of action, which if we took them seriously, would wreak absolute havoc in the economy. It would destroy jobs throughout the economy. That’s not just me saying it. That’s Republican economists, independent economists, Democratic economists. If the United States, for the first time in its history refused to pay its debts, if the United States for the first time in its history, refused to make good on the full faith and credit of the United States, the economy would fall to pieces. Millions of people will lose their jobs. You know, if we want to be taken seriously, we have to be serious about the consequences of our actions. And if we take the course of action being presented, we'd have a fiasco on our hands.

Look, the American people, I think, understand full well what's going on here, but I do think it's important to make clear what the debt ceiling does. You raise the debt ceiling in order to cover obligations already made. It would be as if we don't lift the debt ceiling, it's as if we woke up one morning and said, 'you know, we are not going to pay our mortgage.' Or if you went out and purchased goods and services with a credit card said, ‘hey, you know what? we are not going to pay our credit card today.’ Well, you know what happens? You lose your house if you do that. The credit card company comes after you. If the United States of America was to renege on the full faith and credit of its obligations it would be a disaster in the international economy. And yet that is apparently the course of action being advocated by our Republican colleagues today.

Now, what makes this really political theater is that everybody knows that more responsible Members of Congress and certainly the President of the United States are not going to let that happen. They are not going to let that reckless outcome to happen. And that's why, in so many ways, this is unfortunately just political theater and it's one of the things, frankly, that contributes to the American people's low view of the Congress, this kind of political game-playing.

Another thing that contributes to that is Members’ of Congress refusal to take responsibility for their own actions. Now, last year we had the Republican budget on the floor of the House.  There are major differences in the priorities between the Republican budgets and the Democratic budgets, but the reality is the Republican budget, that was overwhelmingly voted for by our Republicans colleagues, would require us to lift the debt ceiling of the United States. The very debt ceiling that our Republican colleagues are now telling us they don't want to increase. It would require us - it would have added [$8.8 trillion] to the debt over the next 10 years. How is it that people can come down and vote for a budget that says we're going to ask the United States to take on these additional obligations and then vote for a motion or resolution that refuses to take responsibility for those very actions? And I think that's why the American people are understandably losing much of the confidence, certainly in this House of Representatives.

Now, obviously we have big challenges with respect to the deficit. Let’s get together and solve them. But as my colleague, Mr. Hoyer, said, in order to do that we have to come to the table in the spirit of compromise. And we have before the country a number of approaches. We’ve had a number of bipartisan commissions. We have Simpson-Bowles, Rivlin-Domenici. They have established a framework for solving the deficit issue. All of their frameworks say yes, we have to make tough decisions on making cuts, but we also have to deal with the revenue side of the equation. And the major obstacle – let’s just be clear – to dealing with the revenue side of the equation, is we have a lot of folks who have taken the position that you can't close one corporate tax loophole for the purposes of deficit reduction.

We have our colleagues on the Republican side taking the position in the so-called Grover Norquist pledge – a pledge to Grover Norquist’s organization as opposed to the pledge we all take to do our best to uphold the constitution of the United States, and under that pledge if you close a corporate tax loophole for the purposes of deficit reduction, you violated your pledge. If you say, you know what, gas prices are doing really well, oil companies are doing just great, we don't think they need a taxpayer subsidy, we are going to get rid of it; you can't get rid of that if you're going to use some of that money for deficit reduction. It’s a violation of the pledge.

Let’s get serious about deficit reduction. Let’s take a balanced approach. We have a bipartisan model, at least a framework, in Simpson-Bowles. But let's be serious about that. But the reason this process on the floor of the House today is not serious is because everybody recognizes that the United States can't afford to default on its full faith and credit. Everybody, that is, except for the folks who are apparently going to vote to say we can't raise the debt ceiling. That we are not going to take responsibility for paying for obligations already due and owed, budgets already passed. What kind of message is that to our children? You’ve got to pay for your debts, but you know what, you don't really have to, wink, wink, nod, nod, go ahead and buy those things on your credit card and then decide the next day you're not going to pay for them. What a terrible message that is. So let’s take responsibility, colleagues, for our actions. Let’s not play political games. And most of all, let's not follow the advice that our Republican colleagues today are recommending, which would undoubtedly, if taken seriously, result in economic chaos and a huge loss of jobs.