here to talk about the farm bills being put through congress. we will see you here tomorrow at 8:00. on "washingtonhere journal." hos >> today "newsmakers" with chris and van hollen, at the top democrat on the budget committee. then the immigration and border security bill. then robert mahler testifies on the 2014 budget request. >> we want to welcome back congressman chris van hollen pureed thank you for being here.

two reporters with us to ask questions. >> i wanted to start with the irs. there has been a lot of talk about the scandal. i wonder if you think the firing of certain irs officials is enough to appease the american public or if there is a larger role of congressional oversight. >> i am glad the president acted swiftly to ask for the resignation. we have to take the facts wherever they lead us. we will continue to have hearings into this issue. the concept was clearly unacceptable. we need to get to the bottom of its. we need to recognize that after the citizens united case, you had a doubling of applications tax status.r 5014c

there are many groups trying to get this kind of tax status to conduct political activities without disclosing their donors. that is why the irs is having a tough time. they have to go through all applications. is the main purpose social welfare or political they went about it in the wrong way. if you require disclosure of donors for people for dissipating in political activities you eliminate the incentive is groups have to try .o get this status kind ofo you push this legislation in a way that will make republicans want to take it

up? >> i think the american people are clear on this issue. they have been on every public survey i have seen. they believe the voters have a right to know who is bankrolling the political campaign activities. that is all we're asking for, transparency. we believe transparency leads to greater accountability. if groups engage in political activities who have formed these kinds of organizations have to disclose, you not have this incentives. there are issues with respect to the different irs organizations. if you had disclosure in transparency, you would take away the incentives for a lot of groups to try to game the system. the irs should that be in this business ultimately. scandalsoliferation of

is certainly changing the narrative on the hill the last few days. it does not appear this was going to be crippling to the white house. how do you think this affect the broader agenda which is stumbling a bit. goinges this play out forward in terms of the president been able to accomplish a budget deal? >> i hope it will not distract us from some of the other big issues facing the country. ofre is an important role congressional oversight of these issues. congress should do the job to get to the fact rather than spin fiction. we need to get to the bottom of it. is it that mean that we do not work on jobs and the economy and on the budget issues. this week the democrats in the house tried to go to congress on the budget. we asked them to do this so we

this week's senate democrats asked to go to congress for the eighth time. you saw republican senators " ying it was "insane republicans to be the ones blocking progress on the budget. let's get on with that. help replace the sequester. you cannot have a discussion if you refuse to talk. >> on the budget, there's that much point of going to conference until we get closer to the debt limit deadline when you will be forced to reach some kind of compromise. it is something i am sympathetic to. what do you think you can accomplish? you are very far apart. there does not seem to be any sign of compromise on either side.

terms of moving beyond the point we have now arrived at, how does the conference helped that? public you are in a forum and increases the pressure to try and get things done. the republicans in the house and made this their rallying cry for the last three years. they complained the senate and not have a budget. we do not have a budget right now. there is no federal budget. members are not getting paid. they complain to the president's budget was late, yet our own statute law requires them to commit action by april 15. every day that goes by where they refuse to, and they are in violation of that law. t together in the light of

day is the way to go . unfortunately, the only news is there is no news. you cannot go to conference until the chairman of the senate start workingee things out. guess what? they are not doing that. that is why senator murray has called for the eighth time to go to conference. do you want to do this behind closed doors? the city do not want to. where do you want to do it? in the light of day at? >> house republicans had a meeting this past week or they're trying to decide what they would like to extract from democrats in exchange for a debt limit increase. a lot of ideas came out from

repealing the health care lot to tax reform to reforms included in the right and budget. do you see any of these things for viable trade-off increasing the limit? >> you described accurately what the republicans were doing. what will they accept a democrat in order to agree that the united states will pay its bills on time? that is what it means to lift the debt limit. we have to pay our bills as a country. if we did not pay our bills, it would be like us get it up and saying i will pay my mortgage on my house but i will not pay my card bills. we have to pay all of our bills. republicans are going to say will only support. the u.s. will pay the bills and live up to the full faith and credit. the democrats agree to accept the budget the blwhat it is non.

we will agree to how the united states pay it. this is not happening. the president has been very clear. we're not going to negotiate over the principle of whether the united states becomes a dead beat nation or not. we should address all the issues. we should address them in the context of a budget conference which is the forum for dealing with the budget and tax reform off for what ever reason the republicans do not want to do it through the ready your -- regular order. i do not blame people for being confused. the idea that you will hold the and credit of unitededi

states hostage for a particular budget issue is not something that is going to work. i do not think the american people will accept that. >> at work for them in the last go around. -- it worked for them in the last go around. they did deal. why do you think it will be different this time? >> on the no budget/no pay, let's be clear. there is a house budget and the senate budget but no federal budget and people are still getting paid. it did not work in terms of accomplishing the goal of getting the budget. let'ss why we're saying get together and get 01 budget. if you are a business, you have one partner with one budget and another, that will not help. we need to do that.

it is in the context of the budget negotiations that we should deal with those issues. we are more than prepared to do that. you cannot resolve them if you refuse to meet. >> let's say republicans do cave on the debt limit and decide they're going to do the responsible thing and raised without doing anything else. did the deficit is falling dramatically. are we done? are we finish with deficit- reduction? with long-termmb deficit reduction. this is where there have been a lot of confusion. >> where is the pressure for it? does president obama pursue in time to reform for its own sake? >> republicans would like to work on tax reform. secondly, republicans used to agree with democrats that the

sequester was a bad idea, that it was a bad idea because it made a huge disruption in a lot of important government functions including the fence. it has huge disruptions. we saw a visible manifestation with the airport situation. in my view, congress cannot deal with this on an ad hoc basis. we should deal with the overall issue. there is going to be increasing pressure to deal with the sequester. just this week secretary chuck hagel announced furloughs for the defense department. that is over 600,000 civilian dod employees who started in july -- kreuz starting in july will be furloughed. this will have a very negative affect on our military readiness. you have centers like senator mccain who have made the point

that this is very disruptive to our national security. enoughld hope that signatures on the republican side would be willing to replace the sequester in a way that preserves our national security. and preserves and portents like other essential -- important desmans like other essential functions. that is exactly what the budget conference is for. we cannot get an agreement on our proposal to go to conference this week. we have been denied the opportunity to vote for times for opportunities to replace the sequester. >> republicans do see this as a new rallying cry for them, something that would be a positive thing that would be radically reduce the deficits.

is this a path forward? do you think democrats would be willing to consider tax reform in a way that lower rates if there were a path to also getting revenues out of it? >> and tax reform there are two pieces. one is corporate tax reform and then there's individual. on corporate tax reform everybody agrees that we should look for a way to reduce the rate by broadening the base. the united states corporate tax rate is higher than most countries. tax is actually a middling. they get so many deductions. they are different. we should reform that. we should also look at the individual tax code. we want to see our republican colleagues plans for years now. they have been saying they have

top rate to reduce the that does not increase the deficit. they have not put it on paper. show us your plan. last december the speaker said he had a plan to raise $800 billion by eliminating tax beaks which she saidhe said cod done by limousine breaks for high-income people. we have heard this. they did not want to go to conference on the budget. they keep talking about trying to get something done in tax reform. they keep talking about having an alternative health care plan. it used to be that they were going to replace obamacare. rid ofek we voted to get obamacare which is not going to happen. obamacare, their

claim of the budget would be absolutely destroyed. they cannot have it both ways. >> on the affordable care act, what are your concerns going forward with the roll out? they are consumed right now with the irs. criticsve been especially on the democratic side that this is not going well so far. >> it is premature to suggest that it is not going well. they want to make sure the ministration is pared to roll things out. these health care exchanges. then it kicks in next year. there is a lot of work in making sure you said all that up. the end result will be more people will get access to affordable health care. there are lots of things that

need to be done to make sure they are ready. the administration is working really hard. >> are you confident they will be ready? >> i am confident they're working really hard to do it. the challenge is that a lot of states with republican governors decided they did not want to help. they did not want to be partners in setting up these exchanges. in all the states, the federal government will come in and help set of the exchange. republican governors said they do not want the government participating. by refusing to participate in means the federal government will be setting up the exchanges. in my state of maryland the state is taking on the major responsibility for setting up the exchange. >> could i go back to sequestration? you are not interested in a small fix. congress are a pass that one day past the -- pass that when they

passed the faa fix. do you think the president should veto any further small board fixes? >> i think the president should take the position he stated. we need to deal with this of a comprehensive basis. i do think it is a mistake for congress to try to deal with this piecemeal. congress rushed to take care of folks at the airports, including members of congress who are rushing out of town. they are losing these services. seniors get meals on wheels. researchers are doing important work. medoes not make sense to just to take the issue that happens to pop up when there are all sorts of other problems resulting from the sequester, including large-scale problems.

there are about 100,000 fewer jobs that will be created by the hundreds of thousands by the end of this year. we have already lost many of them. the sequester has been in place. that is counterproductive when you have an economy that is still in slow growth mode. it is much better to deal with this comprehensively. not despite this. do you think he should strike any of these further fixes done if they come up? >> the answer is yes. i think it is much better to deal with this all at once. the president has been crystal clear that when it comes to the major pieces of the sequester, defense and economic events, that he would veto any effort to

try to undo a one and not the other. this may become relevant in the weeks ahead. i believe he may see another effort from republicans to simply say we are going to fix the defense sequester but leave in place the other sequester. if you look at the appropriations bill, you're saying the market up. up tore marking these very high levels which means they are going to absolutely got important investments in science and research and in some of our transportation. think the president has been clear on that. it may well be that that issue comes to a boil before we get to the debt ceiling and before we get to the end of the fiscal

year. this is the final backstop. something has to happen. should vetoresident is? >> he should be very clear that know if we will release this. he has been clear that he would veto it. i support that decision. >> let me ask you a question about your personal future. there was an article not long ago title the next speaker of the house. >> we have plenty to do right now, right here. get focused on trying to this budget process working. that is my emphasis. what the future brings.

nancy pelosi is doing a terrific job as the democratic leader. i fully support her in that capacity. toare working hard to try win back a majority in the house. we will try and make that happen. right now in the house the power of the majority is the power to decide what gets voted on. if we were the majority we could have had a vote to replace the sequester. try to have a vote for times. --four times. we're working hard to try to get that back. >> one more budget question. the president said he will not negotiate over the debt limit. he says his debt reduction plan is non-negotiable. what is to talk about?

president is does seem to want to negotiate over any of this stuff. >> less distinguished between the president's budget proposal and the house and senate democratic proposal. one of the things the president presented a lot of push back, is he put forward a budget in the nature of a compromise from the beginning. what these budget often are our statement of what one party would do if they could have everything their way. to the house republican budget blueprint for a very radical republican approach to the economy. huge cuts in changing the nature of medicare and a tax cuts. that is their statement. the house democratic statement includes a balanced approach to the budget deficit.

some targeted cuts and revenue. the president put in his budget speaker of the house have proposed. he cemented his budget in the nature of a compromise from the beginning. so much that the republican budget does not include the very idea is that he put in for things like this. the president has gone a long way and it is creating concern among democrats. republicans need to show a little reciprocity. the reason they refuse to go to conference is to things. people will see the stark differences between our approaches. they do not want to compromise. if they did, speaker bay near cannot give the compromise through his own party in the house.

that is a place where is the room -- where is there room to this is whatdags republicans used to say they were for. now they want to do a bit behind closed doors which is not happening. >> we have a couple more questions. house immigration working group came to an agreement and principal on comprehensive immigration reform. have you been told what is in this bill and how that will progress in the house tax what you think the path for this bill is? >> i have a pretty fair idea of the elements of the discussions in the house. people are working in good faith

to finalize something. it is not final yet. there is no final house agreement. meanwhile, we have legislation coming through the senate. they are marking up on the 8 proposal. gang of we are hopeful that will come over to the house and the best case scenario would be for speaker bayer allow us to have an up or down vote. if he does not want to do that, at the very least edition make sure it goes to the house process and an expedited manner. so people do not drive this process out in order to kill it. we should have a full up or down vote in the house. we need to get a majority in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. i know the speaker put up a senate one for a vote.

we need to get to that. >> do you think the only way to pass the immigration bill is to do it without a majority of republicans on board? >> as i listen to our colleagues, my sense is that the majority are against comprehensive immigration reform. the majority are against the senate's gain of 8 proposal which reflects the compromises necessary. at the end of the day you're going to have to have a vote which may not have a majority of republicans but reflects the majority view of the u.s.. thank you very much. >> i appreciate it. continues.ers" lori, let me begin with you on the budget negotiations.

we just heard from the top democrat of the house budget committee. they want to go to conference. what is happening? >> nothing much. democrats want to go to conference because they want a forum where they can argue that the president the compromise on the table. republicans have gone nowhere, moved off this budget that is so objectionable. they want a public forum to hammer away at the republicans. republicans are saying we do not see a pact to compromise therefore we do not want to setup this reform. at this point everything it seems to be in a stall. the debt limit seems to be receding further and further into the future as a pressure point. we have the end of the fiscal

year coming up. we've got to resolve the issue of the sequestered going into 2014. that could be the moment when everybody has to figure out what are we going to do about this message? couldt does it mean a tax be enough pressure for -- what does it mean? could it be enough pressure for a grand bargain? caucus isnd bargain shrinking rapidly on the hill. if you are not looking at defaults, if you're looking at a government shutdown, that is a different dynamic. are the going to scale back the sequestered? how much are we going to spend? i cannot see republicans wanting to bring taxes into the discussion and less able to push the issue of tax reform. we have these deadlines in the mushbut it all turns into

and we do not accomplish much. >> sequestration for this year prevails. what is going to happen? what do you hear about what will happen for sequestration for 2013? >> at that it was interesting that he did not endorse the to go but the concept of a veto. he does not want any more of the small board fixes. the arctic open that door. once they did, it is hard to deny any of these groups coming in and saying we are filling this pain here. he said the main two pillars of sequester that is defense cuts in discretionary cuts should be left intact.