targeted to specific programs, they would not -- they would be counter productive. specifically, the defense cuts and republicans politically are using the fact that the pentagon has warned against these cuts coming into effect as a way of making their arguments they should be replaced. democrats have a bit of a problem themselves because they have acknowledged as well that they don't want to see the automatic cuts take effect. they called them in one of their reports a meat ax to the budget. but it's not clear yet whether the democrats are going to offer their own comprehensive proposal to replace them. they refer to their own proposals in the president's budget and the house democratic budget but it's not clear whether they will be competing proposals on the floor. >> it's no secret that either side has liked the sequester from the beginning.

they both dismissed it and said it's unworkable. what do you think is going to happen with the sequester cuts. are they going to be what we see or you think there's going to be some sort of deal and if so when? >> well, there's very little hope that there's going to be a deal any time soon and certainly before the november elections. and then of course we've talked a lot about the big lame duck session that is expected after the november election, where we might see a deal that involves replacement of these cuts. this is all wrapped up politically and substantively in a series of expiring provisions, most notably the expiration of the bush tax cuts, and of course they are going to have to raise the debt ceiling again sometime likely after the election but maybe before the end of the year. so, it's possible that we would see a deal that encompasses all three of those things, the debt ceiling, the tax cuts, and these

sequestered cuts coming into effect. >> russell bermen from the hill while we have you, i want to run through what else is going on this week on capitol hill. congress was away last week as we've said. what is going to be leading congress's debate this week besides the sequester cuts? >> well, the senate is expected to hold a vote. i believe on tuesday. on the student loan program and the -- and preventing an increase in the interest rates, the house passed the bill before they went on recess regarding this and the senate has a bill opposed by democrats that would offset the costs of preventing an increase in the student loan rates with closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and republicans are expected to oppose this, so we should see another partisan

vote and the house is going to ask later in the week to reauthorization the export-import bank that was an agreement struck by majority leader eric cantor and the minority whip steny hoyer. >> and quickly, a lot of people watching the transportation debate on capitol hill. any movement on funding for transportation? >> well, we're going to see the first meeting of the conference committee between the senate and the house on a two-year extension of -- a two-year highway bill. the house has only passed a short-term extension, the senate has pass add two-year extension and they are going to start their conference committee this week. >> russell berman from the hill newspaper thanks for joining us to talk about what's going on on the hill this week. >> thank you. >> we're waiting for house budget committee chairman paul ryan to gavel this meeting into session. we see there are a number of

congressmen have arrived. congress shefetz. so far seated at the table only republicans.

>> among the programs that would be reduced under the bill that the budget committee is considering today, food stamps, medicaid, child tax credit, meals on wheels, adoption assistance, day care funding, transportation programs for the elderly and disabled.

>> the top democrat on the house budget committee chris van hollen has entered. associated press writes that republicans who control the house are using the cuts to food aid health care and social services like meals on wheels to protect the pentagon from a crippling wave of budget cuts in january.

>> a little more from the associated press about the bill that the house budget committee is considering today. the budget cutting drive by the committee is designed to head off a looming 10%, $55 billion budget cut set to strike the pentagon on january 1. but the automatic spending cuts known as

>> as we wait for the committee to get under way talking about the sequester eplacement act reuters writes that it's expected to be approved by the panel and will underscore the deep differences between republican and democratic spending priorities. already house democrats are pouncing on the effort as hurting the poor, claiming that $35.8 billion in food stamp reductions over ten years will cut off 1.8 million people from the nutrition assistance program. that in reuters.

>> the meeting will come to order. section 201 of 112, the budget for fiscal year 2013. we'll consider motions to ask for changes to the bill and rules committee. hr 4966, the sequester replacement act of 2012. the procedure is as follows. there will be one set of opening statements with 10 minutes controlled by the majority, 10 minutes by the minority, giving the time constraints i ask that members insert their written statements. i will hold the record till the end of the day. we'll then take up 30 minutes for members to ask staff any technical questions they may have regarding each bill. after voting to report the act

we'll then debate any motions and then move immediately into a separate markup of the sequester replacement act. there will be four total amendments and four motions authored by the minority. on the motion there will be a total of 60 minutes of debate. today's meeting will likely take time to complete and we expect a series of votes. i think we have two votes at 6:30. i ask to be authorized to declare a recess at any time, without objection, so ordered. now we'll go to opening statements. before that simply let me say this is what the budget committee is supposed to be doing. this is reconciliation. this is dealing with the other parts of the budget, that has been ignored for too long.

often when we have budget resolutions we do one number, the budget process stops and they write bills. we've been ignoring the other side of the ledger book, the side that's growing, that's why this is important. we haven't had reconciliation aimed at actually saving money since 2005 on this committee. i think whether the health care act was for that purpose or not. you would. okay. with that let me start with the opening statement. and go ahead and run the clock. welcome to today's markup. today this committee meets to advance sensible spending restraints and reach prioritized saving called for under the budget control act. last year we were coming up on a debt ceiling. the obama administration asked congress to rubber-stamp. then the president insisted that he would not accept a debt ceiling deal that did not include a large tax increase for families and businesses. all of this work was made more difficult by the fact that the

senate failed to pass a budget again. nevertheless, both parties came together to avoid defaulting on the government's obligations. we succeeded in protecting hard working taxpayers by securing a debt limit increase that contained zero tax hikes. instead we established caps on discretionary spending achieving a minimum of approximately $917 billion in savings over 10 years. we established a joint select commit tee produce at least $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction. despite a good faith effort to avoid sequester the committee's negotiations broke down over fundamental differences and visions for our nation's future. in our view, we shouldn't be taking more from hard working americans to fix washington's mistakes. instead, we should be solving the problem of structural reforms to our entitlement programs to make them strong and sustainable. we couldn't get agreement on those core principles.

so 2013 sequester is scheduled to impose cut in spending on january 2, 2013. despite our differences we again find ourselves in strong bipartisan agreement that sequester is bad policy and ought to be replaced. 10% across the board cut in defense spending, the sequester hollow out our national defense. those aren't my word, that's how the secretary of defense described it. the 8% across the board cut in nondefense from the sequester would inflict great damage -- is that better. inflict great damage on critical domestic priorities. those aren't my words. those come from the president's budget. that's why this committee in this house passed a responsible budget and why we're here to meet our legal and our moral obligations to lead. six house committees reported legislation that would replace this sequester with common sense spending that members ever both

parties should be able to support. the legislation before the committee today does five key things. first, it stops fraud by ensuring individuals are actually eligible for the tax payer benefits that they receive. for instance, we propose to stop fraud in the food stamp program by ensuring that individuals are eligible for those taxpayer benefits that they are to receive. that shouldn't be a partisan issue, that ought to be a common sense issue. second, we eliminate government slush funds and stop the bail outs. this savs billions by eliminating the dod frank too big to fail fund. we need to end the concept of too big to fail, not enshrining it with this guarantee. third, it controls run away unchecked spending. it does this mainly by re-examining some very unwise spending choices made by the white house in the last congress in passing the stimulus and the health care laws. for example, take the health law's co-op program, which

disperses government subcy sized loans. according to the omb, 50% of these loans will never be repaid. fourth, the restrains spending on government bureaucracies. look, we all believe in a strong federal work force. they serve our country honorably. but workers in the private sector are being asked to share more equitably in the cost of their retirement benefits, and we feel that federal workers ought to be able to do the same especially since it's those private sectser worker that are paying the taxes to pay their salaries. finally it gets rid of wasteful and do pliktive spending. i'm sure our friends will talk about the block grant but what they won't tell you is that the missions from this block grant program created in 1956 are currently being duplicated by dozens ever newer and other federal programs. we have an enormous array of overlapping and do pliktive

programs in the federal government gone unnoticed and unscrutinized for far too long. this begins that process. taxpayers deserve better than to see their money wasted on do plikitive programs that never end because ending them would take turf away from some bureaucracy. this will lay the ground work for -- unless we act, the sequester will take effect. i don't believe this is in the national interest. i think the president claims that he agrees with that as well. there is no reason we cannot work to replace this sequester. house republicans are bringing specific proposals to the table and we invite the administration to do the same which they have not. i want to know one more thing before yielding. under the budget act we cannot amend a reconciliation bill i. know for most members they have never done this before because we don't do reconciliation that often. i don't know how many members on the other side were here when we did reconciliation the last time just in the health care bill.

you can't amend it. we take bills from the committees, we package it, send it on. that's why the motion process occurs. so i want to note that first, we should add to the sequester replacement act to the second to the reconciliation bill. it's my opinion that in rules committee these bibls ought to be combined so the intent is made clear what this is all about. second, we're going to need a technical fix to the commit he in reform submission to ensure that rerealize the full savings from the retire mtd reforms. we do not want to use that to free up spending among the government agencies when the intenlts of this is saving taxpayer dollars. with that i look forward to a nice and fruitful evening and i want to yield to my friend from maryland mr. van hollen. >> thank you mr. chairman. is this mike still -- sound system still off? okay. thank you, mr. chairman and

hopefully we will not be here late into the night, but obviously we have important work to do and we should do it thoroughly and there's lots to discuss. because we're gathered here today to talk about important choices. choices that reflect our priorities and choices that reflect our values. once again it's important to emphasize that the issue is not whether we should implement a plan to reduce the deficit in a steady credible and predictable way. we should. the question is how do we do it. the house republican budget for the year reflected a lopsided approach to deficit reduction. it provided windfall tax breaks to millionaires, and at the same time ended the medicare guarantee for seniors. it slashed investments that strengthen our economy and shredded important parts of the social safety net that is vital for tens of millions of

americans. that unfair and unbalanced approach focused only on cutting investment and services rather than also closing tax loopholes and that is the wrong choice for america. in contrast, the democrats offered a budget that preserves the medicare guarantee, helps create more jobs now, makes us stronger through investments that build long term growth and reduces the deficit in a balanced way through shared responsibility. now, the reason we're here today is the budget control act which has two essential parts. one part, cut discretionary spending, over ten years by a little over $900 billion. we set those levels in law for discretionary spending. the second part set up a mechanism that triggers another $1.2 trillion of across the board cuts over 10 years unless,

unless congress comes up with an alternative amount of budget savings. half the cuts would come from defense programs, the other half from non-defense programs that are not expressly exempted by the budget control act. the reason defense cuts comprise 50% of the sequester, is because our republican colleagues later on refused to take a balanced approach to deficit reduction. that is they refused to agree that part of the $1.2 trillion should come from closing tax loopholes for special interests and ending tax breaks for the wealthy. they deliberately chose to put defense spending on the chopping block rather than close corporate tax loopholes and other revenue measures. in fact, chairman mckeon, chairman of the armed services committee, expressed understandable concern about that choice at the time when he

said and i quote, if it came that i had only two choices, one was a tax increase and one was a consult in defense over and above where we already are, i would go to strengthen defense. he later said, this is in the fiscal times, we're going to have to stop repeating ideological talking points and address our budget problems comprehensively through smarter spending and increased revenue, end of quote. i don't know if the chairman has changed his mind but he had it exactly right, and the proposal we had before us today, the republican package shows that nothing has changed since those earlier negotiations. it shows that our republican colleagues continue to reject that balanced approach to deficit reduction. the plan before us is flawed for several reasons. first, it is only for one year, and even then it doesn't totally remove the sequester.

it lifts the sequester for discretionary spending but leaves it in place for all mandatory spending except defense. as a result, it keeps the 2% across the board cut in medicare, for example. second, it continues the lopsided approach of the full republican budget, protecting those special interest tax breaks at the expense of vital safety net programs. some examples and we'll have an opportunity to discuss them more fully as this meeting proceeds. it cuts food and nutrition programs for families who are struggling financially to put food on the table. even as we emerge from a tough economy, the republican plan cuts off assistance to -- cuts assistance to every eligible household starting in july 1st and cuts about 2 million people off food assistance entirely. 75% of the households are families with children, and

300,000 children will lose access to the free lunch program at school. at the same time, it doesn't cut one penny from direct payment taxpayer subsidies to agricultural businesses. not one penny. now, the budget control act deliberately shielded programs for the most vulnerable from the sequester. so starting january 2, 2003 the sequester would not touch the food and nutrition programs. it would cut agricultural subsidies yet in the name of avoiding the negative consequences of the sequester, this plan hits the food and nutrition programs but totally exempts all of the agricultural subsidies. another example, the republican plan eliminates the social services block grant program which helps 23 million children and adults receive essential

services, including some support for meals on wheels, prevention of child abuse and neglect and child care for parents returning to work. this cut is bizarre for many reasons. first, we had a whole hearing on the importance of trying to help people get back to work. and yet this would cut support for child care assistance for people who want to try to get back to work. second, we keep hearing from our colleagues that we should turn snap and medicaid into a block grant program because that will give the states and local jurisdictions greater flexibility. well, the social services block grant is just that, it provides maximum flexibility to local jurisdictions and yet the one kind of program you say you like you eliminate. entirely. that's a little clue i think as to what will happen to the other program they become a block grant program. finally, if the sequester were to hit the social security block

grant program would face a cut of 8.5% or $150 million compared to 100% cut elimination. a final example relates to cuts to help coverage for kids, seniors and other americans. the congressional budget office estimates that the cuts to the children's health insurance program will result in 300,000 kids losing health care coverage in three years, again, this is one of those trade-offs. it's because we refused to consider closing loopholes for special interests. and again, i would point out that if the sequester went into effect because on a bipartisan basis i thought we voted to protect programs for the most vulnerable, none of those children would lose their health insurance. not one of those 300,000 would lose if it the sequester went into effect. yet, here we're trying to, quote, fix the sequester but they will be left exposed. apparently nothing has changed. mr. chairman, and colleagues,

there is a better way forward, the president's budget and the similar democratic alternative include specific balanced approaches to deficit reduction. we do think that's a better approach by far than the meat ax approach that the sequester would impose. but we need to come together and develop that kind of balanced approach to getting it done. unfortunately, we were not able to do that during the biden group discussions, we've not been able to do that to date. i hope some time before now and the election and certainly before the end of the year we're able to come together and take the same kind of approach that bipartisan groups have recommended, meaning something that combines cuts with cuts to special interest tax breaks, and by doing that we can take a balanced and measured approach toward tackling what is a very

real chairman. thank you, mr. chairman. >> it is. don't use the hand held? all right. this one's working. all right.

>> we'll wait for them to reboot the system.