senate democrats have yet another opportunity to pass a budget. they have had 48 days to act but have refused. yesterday liberals laughed and mocked republican leader eric cantor when he warned of bankruptcy. but eric was standing up for freedom in the best virginia tradition. we face a shut down today because the liberal majority in the house last year failed to pass a budget. the new republican majority did pass a budget 48 days ago but the liberal majority in the senate failed to act. citizens should call liberals and demand they pass a budget today. in conclusion, god bless our

budget. with a deficit of $1.6 trillion and debt of $14 trillion, it's no surprise that we got to do something and we have to do something dramatic. mr. flake: this budget balances over a nine-year period and reforms the programs that are important to americans, to make them solvent and sustainable over time. the proposals from the other side of the aisle simply don't do that. they ignore the time bomb that we have in these programs. so i commend the r.s.c. staff and members for putting this together. this is a good budget. we ought to support it to put our nation on a path of financial stability and security. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the chair would remind the gentleman from maryland that the time remaining is 4 1/2 minutes, and the gentleman from new jersey has eight minutes. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from new jersey. the gentleman from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. chairman. the time bomb that's ticking is the time bomb on the medicare guarantee. w

president obama and a democratic house and senate as a consequence and to ultimately get a plan for a budget that reduces the deficit and allows us to to win the future and will have a real budget and treasure again i mean is the bottom line how do you respond to those cynics i've been hearing from them in droves. who who say that. you know with health care for example nothing is ever enough but it goes even beyond that that it it almost seems at times that president obama first a go she it's with himself down to his bottom line position and then he goes to the republicans and says ok let's split. and as you know. what do you think the chances are here that whether it's because he's running for reelection now as the republicans are alleging or because the you know we're looking at the probability of a double dip recession or the possibility or whatever for whatever reason that that something that you know he's going to hold fast on this one i think the odds are are better that he will hold fast on the number of things he's promised it will fester and that is not medicare block granting medic

, we have a democratic budget, we have a black caucus budget, we have a progressive caucus budget, we have lots of options. i'm going to talk about the republican budget. the budget proposal we are debating today is reckless and misguided. it slashes taxes for the wealthy and pays for them by gutting medicare. let me explain that. it cuts over $30 billion in the first 10 years and by forcing seniors into private health insurance plans after 2022. they are right. if you are 54 years old now, and you have high blood pressure, and you have high diabetic or prediabetic, you won't get medicare, you'll get a voucher. insurance companies don't want to cover those who are diabetic or prediabetic or have high blood pressure. it gradually excludes seniors and eventually raising the age to 67 for medicare. c.b.o. says in 2022 the republicans will more than double the cost paid by medicare enrollees. we are throwing seniors out of medicare and into uncertainty in the private insurance market while providing tax breaks to the wealthy. it doesn't make sense. i also repr

budget. we want to make sure it is not balanced on the backs of immigrants, people of color, homeless. we want to see a balanced budget, not on the backs of district 6? can i hear power to the people? [applause] >> they gave me another name. we would like to welcome maria sue. hello. we will hear from larry from seniors and disabled. >> thank you all for coming. why are you asking me to come up here in a speech to the seniors? you were broke a few years ago after working all of your life. i will tell you, without the family service, without the housing clinic, i would have been in the streets. after working all of my life. i want to say thank you to all of you that have the nerve to come up and ask the mayor and the staff to please consider keeping those units open. there are people that don't have food on the weekend. they will cut out the food program to the weekends. they have nothing to eat. they need someplace to go to claim himself a. -- clean themselves up. they connect you to the community. to get clean water to drink, to have associations with somebody that might be able to tell you something

budget. maybe just a bit amazed. in such a democratic country sides can really find a middle ground so i would say it's. not such a good example of especially if you're the countries fighting for democracy in other countries then this definitely doesn't send a very good example for democracy everyone should be able to compromise and there's got to be a middle ground that that would at least prevent the government from shutting down here in the u.s. in our congress if the government can't agree on a budgets they are going to shut down on friday what do you think. in england will do things that where they do stay open and until they can do some sort of compromise the won't really shut down on friday will you don't think they well i'll bet you know my bottom dollar to use an americanism. so you think it's all just a lot of hype it's just hot air i think it's killing me you know i mean charging and service is showing on parks people don't have work to me totally unacceptable. but these politicians. their lives don't chan

a shutdown. focus on thee budget. let's reduce spending. .et's vote this afternoon for all of their radical rhetoric, we can vote on that later on tomorrow. we can vote on sunday. they will put it in with a small business -- do not put it in would small-business loans. do not put it in with cancer research. do not put it in at all. do not let them change the subjects. media, do not be sucker punched into a ball and bat line of debate. -- punched into falling back line of debate. >> i am going to play devil's advocate here. >> that is shocking. [laughter] >> i do not even think we should answer that question. this is not about yosemite. this is about hundreds of thousands of people do need services that are going to be denied. this is about military, people serving in iraq and afghanistan you are not going to get their checks. this is about people that may not make their house payment. this is what this is about. the number has been achieved, you see. the government does not need to close because from what we have under

we're unlikely to have a budget again this year. i was just asked by a reporter on the way walking over here -- you mentioned i was in the house for some time, and i was, before i came to the senate. then the question was well, for somebody like you who has been in washington, wasn't the tea party a big challenge? and i said no, the tea party was not a big challenge. they were a great opportunity for us to have someone out there talking about the imperative that we get this spending under control. and i visited with them about a struggle that you and i and senator isakson were involved in before our good friend, senator barrasso, got to the senate where we actually took on entitlement spending in 2005. and as i recall that effort, i got lots of calls on entitlement spending reforms where we cut entitlement spending the only time in a decade by $40 billion. i got lots of calls, and not one of them was supportive of cutting spending. every single call -- as far as i know, every phone i had rang everywhere i had a phone for 100 days. as

a balanced budget, a balanced budget amendment would take us back to this archaic and ineffective system permanently. the fourth fault, a balanced budget amendment favors wealthy americans over middle and low income americans by making it harder to raise revenues and easier to cut programs. again, a b.b.a. ultimately favors wealthy americans over middle and lower income americans. under current law legislation can pass by a majority of those present and voting by a recorded vote. the b.b.a. requires, however, that legislation raising taxes be approved on a roll call vote by a majority of the full membership of both houses. thus the b.b.a. would make it harder to cut the deficit by curbing special interest tax breaks and make it easier to reduce programs such as medicare, medicaid, social security, veterans benefits, education, environmental programs and assistance for poor children. wealthy individuals and corporations receive most of their government benefits in the form of tax entitlements while low income and middle income americans receive most of their government benefits through pr

. >> when would we hear this item at the budget committee meeting? >> it would be a special budget meeting. >> you can have any meeting you like at any point, you just need 24 hours to post an agenda. from a brown act perspective, if you chose to do that, you can post the special meeting at a few want. >> correct me if i am wrong, is that 24 hours' notice? we could notice a special meeting after our budget meeting on the twenty eighth and be here until midnight? is that correct? so i'm just going to put that out there. if members of the budget committee wants to augment that, they can view the full to order. -- charter. >> it is a special ed redesign meeting. we have a closed session to talk about employee layoffs. it will be a long night. i would like a yes or no vote and not a lot of discussion. but providing information in the meeting to have a very clear and distinct a session. that was my children telling me what to say. >> i accept the recommendation to have a special meeting on thursday. >> we are not adding this item to the existing budget agenda, but we woul

not only propose a budget, we're going to move a budget in a time line that has been prepared by the budget act. so we do want to get from talking about saving billions of dollars, which we want to save, to talking about saving trillions of dollars and getting this country on the right path. >> i know the timing -- >> i don't know the answer -- look, we will have passed three bills now to prevent a government shutdown. we pass our first one 45 days ago. the senate hasn't passed one. if you're talking about who's aiming for a government shutdown, look at the legislative chamber, the united states senate that has not passed one bill. we don't want a government shutdown, but we don't want to rubber stamp high, big spending. >> why didn't you address that? and secondly, why do you guys agree with the administration on the defense budget? >> so let me go with the defense budget. we think bob gates is doing a good job. we think secretary gates has done a good job looking for a bunch of waste and inefficiencies. our budget reflects those policies, are flekreflects rein $100 billion and savin

is there going to be a budget resolution that passes both chambers this year and if not are we headed for a shutdown debate in september? >> it's not inconceivable they could reach a budget resolution but the participants are so far apart on the issues of health care and taxes it's hard to see where they get that compromise. republicans passed their budget and they're going to pass their spending bills at their levels and have a confrontation over these in september. i think once again in the fall we are going to be having a shutdown conversation again. gwen: everybody is unhappy. that's the definition of compromise. >> that was something that boehner said this week. he said welcome to divided government. and they edged up passing the spending bill for the rest of this year with a very bipartisan coalition. who knew? the democrats voted against it and a lot of conservatives opposed it. >> we've had a week to see how boehner did in a -- this past week. how do you think he has emerged in this and where is he at going forward? he needed democrats with him this week. is that something tha

it's a courageous budget. it's a long-term budget. it deals with the unsustainable course that our social security and medicare are on, and medicaid. he proposes solutions that save those programs and protect our seniors but yet put us on the right trajectory. it's a fabulous document. that's what they've been hammering here as some sort of extreme document. but what has the senate produced? nothing. the senate hasn't produced anything, nada. and this is most troubling. but what has the other party who's required to submit a budget? the budget act requires the senate to produce a budget. it requires the house to produce a budget. and it requires the president to submit a budget. and the president a week late but did submit a budget. you know, i truly believe that in light of the dangerous conditions we're in today, the fact, as mr. erskine bowles said -- and mr. bowles, you will recall, is president obama's choice to head the debt commission -- mr. bowles tells us that -- and alan simpson, that we're facing the most predictable econom

that is because the city took a onetime payment to balance our current year budget. there is a significant change here, year over year. that will expire. we have more elections schedule and the coming fiscal year, 2012, costing an incremental $12 million. it further down the page, there are inflationary and other increases. general inflation. changes to the delivery system, including a drawdown of federal revenue on the revenue side. and other costs associated with electronic record implementation and all the things. those are discussed in more depth in the text of the report. i know as we have talked before, this report projects just status quo revenue and status quo expenditures for each of the years, and captures the difference between those lines, which is growing, as the projected shortfall. we are required to balance each year's budget, and how we balance it will have an impact on the future shortfalls. this is a simple illustration of the concept, three different balancing solutions, and won and led the station. and what the limitations will have. the first sce

and put our budget on a path to prosperity. i know what high tacks mean to job trainers in our country, that's why our budget call farce flatter, fairer tax that closes loopholes and increases the incentives of corporations to keep jobs right here in america. i know what small businesses look for when they look to spend and invest. they look for certainty. and this budget more than anything else puts our country back on a certain path of sustainability. job creators and business loaners will stand up and cheer when they see real ideas like this put forth. more ideas of merit in this budget and we want a vigorous debate but i hope it will be a debate on policy differences not political maneuvering. thank you and i yield back my time. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from m.d. is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. i point out again, the choice is whether we want to ask for shared sacrifice. the fact of the matter is the reason the bipartisan fiscal commission said the republican budget is

budget. come on. this is a huge budget that could be cut. our first call is from cape cod, mass., and jeff, a republican. good morning. caller: i have been a republican, i have been, and worked on many of the campaigns here for governor. we dealt with this hear about cutting budgets usually, there would be across-the-board cuts and hiring freezes. the balanced budgets were met. one of the persons who did it was chad atkins. he cut the budget severely. there was an offset on revenue also. no proposals from democrats or republicans seem to have any rationality about the debt or decreasing the budget deficits. they seem to only talk about a few cuts. they are all running huge deficits, even at $600 million a year on a one $0.40 trillion budget of government expenditures. they are still running huge deficits. for every cut, i would like to see democrats offset revenue to equal it. host: it is clear there will be cuts, but there will need to be an increase in revenue. anyone who says anything rather than that is not telling the truth. he cannot do

government will shut down this unless lawmakers come up with a quick fix for spending but is it really a budget battle or an ideological one that will debate. and if a government shutdown wasn't bad enough or giants are negating on their piece of the tax guy and here's the kicker the financial murder of their getting away with it's legal. and the u.s. has been here before a place where top economic giants are trying to make old world a global economy welcome to bretton woods two point zero. keeping it's friday april eighth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine of and you're watching our team now just five hours left until the current funding for the u.s. government runs out and even if lawmakers do manage to reach a deal on a twenty eleven budget in that time both sides agree that it is now too late for congress to pass anything before midnight a stopgap measure covering just a few days is now the only way to prevent a shutdown and we keep tracking that for you here on our team but regardless of how this budget fight ends the fact that it has gotten to this point is likely to be a

a budget is about a budget is about a budget. it isn't about somebody's political vendetta. and i thank you very, very much, mr. president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. a senator: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to proceed for 12 minutes as if we are in morning business. mr. roberts: i thank you, mr. president. well, still at this late, late, late date i want to remain optimistic that we'll reach a final deal on federal spending and the government shutdown. at least the dueling press conferences are continuing as i speak. the speeches, although not many now, have been made. i hope that the negotiations are continuing by someone somewhere. hope springs eternal under the banner of hope and change i would hope that the majority would change his mind and at the very least bring the house-passed measure to the floor for a vote if we can't find some agreement at least we can vote on that. that would fund the military through the end of the fiscal year and avert a shutdown in terms of 2008 spending levels and

a parking, managing the parking. we do control the. when we are talking about the fiscal year 12 budget, there is a low hanging fruit brought price and item that we have to continue to explore. and not flooding the city streets with cars. i want to say that it is great. it is a really good document. it is well done. >> i was surprised to see the bicycle's being more superior to pedestrians. >> there is a kinetic energy. you burn more calories. if you want to lose weight, walk. if you want to lose weight, walker. -- walk. with a bicycle, you can build up kinetic energy. >> i ride a bike because i am lazy. [laughter] director lee: i thought it was a great presentation. just a couple of thoughts. your plan here looks great. we look at how we can incorporate incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. that is a big impact also. the other thing, too, the things that are no-brainers, left turns on the oncoming traffic, with over 200,000 across the nation. none of them make a left turn into oncoming traffic. that is greatly reduced to the greenhouse gas emissions that we are admitting. >> i

i understand how to balance a budget. i know most american families are trying to balance their paycheck, make their mortgag payment. $139,000 you lose in a year. ok. that's tough. you have to take out a second mortgage, max ouyour credit cards. you try to cover that $139,000. ok. then you know you got to make some serious changes. what are you going to do? you talk to your credit card companies. you shut down your business. what do you do? yofigu out how to lose $137,000 the next year. you know what? that $137,000 is going to put that american family out of business just as surely as that $139,000, but that is the republican approach to this bill. now, let me talk about some of the alternatives we have before us. mr. dreier: will the gentleman yield? mr. polis: you can discuss this on yourwn time. i want to go through this excellent chart. if we were serious about deficit reduction republicans could have supported several amendments offered by democrats and voted on in the house when we debated h.r. 1. the democratic amen

in the other part of the budget, the general fund is a portion of the budget that we are talking about when we say we have a $306 million deficit. that is where we have the services that are funded primarily by tax dollars. those services are the department of public health, the fire department, the police department, the sheriff. we don't have a source of money to generate from providing those services. in the general fund, it is 45% of the budget. have significant restrictions on what we can do. we have pension costs. there are obligations that we can't decide to reduce. even before we start making decisions about how to balance the budget, we have the voters approved restrictions, and at the end of the day of the 45% of the budget, only about $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion is truly flexible money. the $306 million budget deficit is approaching and about 25% of that flexible part. we have some big decisions to make about how we will address that deficit. one last point to reemphasize, these numbers at the bottom here are projections for what the deficit is going to look like for the ne

does what does that mean to you shut down for how long that's a question until they can agree on a budget. and take a vacation but be nice i think it can and should be avoided i think we've got bigger problems in this world that we ought to be focusing on and we want to keep everybody employed and working and we can't afford government to stop working you know for a minute do you think it's actually going to happen now how can we be broke how does that happen is that what worries you the most our debt yeah yeah it's a huge national security risk i mean it's killing me you know i mean in shutting down services parks people don't have work to me totally unacceptable but these politicians. their lives don't change they still get benefits they still get health care they still get taken care of soon as you hear that they might start the whole government just because both sides can reach an agreement of course it's sort of war as you know right. does it anger you even that the side can't compromise on something like the budget really anger but maybe just a bit amazed that. in such a democratic

budget. so as you know, the city charter requires us to have a balanced budget every year. unlike the federal government, we cannot borrow money and operate at a deficit. this is an ironclad requirement. it requires us to ensure that our sources and the money coming into the city are equal to our users, and that is the expenditures we make. when we look ahead at next year, we do a projection of what our revenues look like and what our expenditures look like, and what we're seeing for next year is that we are going to have a little bit of good news on revenues -- about $37.7 million, but offsetting that is an expenditure growth. it is getting more expensive to operate our city at the same level, and we're going to have about $344 million worth of cost increases. much of the do, as mayor lee noted, to increases in employee benefit costs. that will be one of the issues that i think we will all have to tackle over the next several months. the bottom line is that we have a $306 million deficit projected for the coming year. this is a little bit better than our starting point of $

economic crisis. >> what does the near shutdown mean for negotiations over next year's budget? and a growing debt crisis fueled by spending on programs like medicare and social security. here for an exclusive interview this morning, the chairman of the house budget committee, congressman paul ryan of wisconsin. finally, our political roundtable weighs in on how the budget showdown was merely a preview of the 2012 campaign. spending cuts, the tea party influence and the fight for independent voters. with us, white house correspondent for "the new york times," helene cooper, chairman and ceo of the special olympics and contributor to "the washington post," tim shriver, host of cnbc's "mad money," jim cramer, and nbc's chief white house correspondent and political director, chuck todd. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good morning. after signing a temporary order to keep the government up and running, the president made a surprise visit to the lincoln memorial saturday, determined to put the best spin possible on those down-to-the-wire budget negotiations. >> because co

passed without a single republican vote the house not only gave us a balanced budget but a surplus and if we roll back the reagan tax cuts and made millionaires pay at least seventy four percent like they did for more than half of the twentieth century when our nation prospered and the middle class grew and we'd actually have a budget surplus a budget surplus can you imagine how different life in america would be with a budget surplus we'd be pain down our debt year to year we'd be able to use that extra cash to do things that our nation hasn't done in generations since reagan started starving the beast and his words that his government would build new bridges roads new schools we build new science programs like nasa from scratch we renovate our national energy grid we'd invest in clean energy like denmark that were one thousand percent of our energy now comes from windmills like germany did by putting solar panels on people's roofs and now after ten years only solar power is generating more electricity in germany the second cloudy is country and european in the u.k.

that is driving our budget? take a look at these charts. our entitlement programs are the drivers of our budget. this is the primary drivers of our budget. failure to address the big drivers of ourdebt, particularly the health care entitlement programs is not to address our debt. next chart, please. the more we kick the can down the road, the wse it gets. the fiscal gap shoulde the next chart. look at this chart. the general accountability office has been telling us for years we are making all of these unfunded promises to americans and the more we kick the can down the rod, we go about $10 trillion deeper down the hole. we can get this under contro and get it in our terms but time is of the essence. next chart, please. debt held by the deficit path. this is the other thing. let's go to the last one. i see we're bouncing around. go to the who shares the debt. the past, we've lenlts money to ourselves. rld war ii, our debt went up as high as the entire size of the economy, but most americans bought war bonds. 1970, a small fraction of the deb

congress without a budget having been passed. that's what happened last year. and for the first time ever we had no appropriations bills passed. now, i'm not pointing fingers, but i will say that there was not a republican in the white house, there was not a democratic senate, and there certainly was not a democratic united states house of representatives. so this was dumped on to the laps of the new majority here in the house of representatives which, as we all know, if we look at the challenges ahead of us, we still have a democrat in the white house, we still have a democratic control of the united states senate. so of the three levers of power legislatively, we have control of only 1/3 of those. and in light of that, we are trying to do the best that we can under somewhat challenging circumstances. last november 2 the american people sent a very strong and powerful message to washington, d.c. my party happened to see the largest gain in nearly 3/4 of a century, 1938 is the last time we saw the kind of change in favor of the re

, a responsible budget was never passed. and that is what we are dealing with today in one part. the bigger part of how we got into this situation is that we are a nation in significant debt. we owe a remarkably large amount of money, $14 trillion is the number that -- is consistently discussed. very few people have a concept of exactly how much money that is. but, yet, we owe that money and people say, who do we owe it to? i visited with a group of high school students from douglas, wyoming, and i asked them who to we owe the money to? and they said, yeah, we owe a lot of it to china. mr. president, that's a great concern to the people of america, people concerned about our national security our financial security. how we, as a nation, are viewed in the world and how we view ourselves. and as families across this country, we live within our means. we balance our budgets every year. i'm from wyoming where according to our constitution we must balance our budget every year. and we do. and that's why we have money available for

president barack obama made a dramatic intervention for the budget and said it would inexcusable to notch a deal before friday's deadline. when the leaders and president obama failed to reach a budget deal, the negotiations stalled over legislation to fund the daily operations of u.s. federal agencies with the republicans demanding greater spending cuts. with the details from washington, steve kingston. >> a self styled republican young gun with a big idea, to slash the deficit on an unprecedented scale. >> we propose to cut $6.2 trillion in spending over the next 10 years from the president's budget. we reduced the debt as a percent of the economy. we put the nation on the path to actually pay off our national debt. our goal here is to leave our children and our grandchildren with a debt-free nation. >> but that bold pledge is built on a controversial foundation. the restructuring of medicare, government funded health care for the elderly. in time the republicans want to move away from the state paying directly for treatments but instead introduce federal subsidies for private health i

the republicans then produce a budget with a huge dose of that. ambitious budget in that department. and now following that, the president is expected to come out with his own plan to do the same thing. so whether he will do as much remains to be seen. i have my doubts. i think it will probably be much, much less. but you can see who's driving the debate and who so far is winning. i think mr. boehner and the republicans have won a significant victory, albeit in dollar terms it will be small this week. there may be more victories to come. >> chris: is that what is going on here? what appears to be a dra maltic strategy shift by the -- dramatic strategy shift by the white house, starting at zero wasn't a tenable position and didn't work well? >> they said all along at some point the president would weigh in on the bigger debate about what to do about the debt, entitlement. we talked about this a lot when he would do it. he is doing it this week. i believe presidents have almost limitless ability to run to the head of the parade and grab the flag and

budget. thankfully, the feds finally did a temporary budget. right now, we are looking at a potential of significant reduction to child care services. particularly to the first five san francisco budget, and it is anywhere from $11 million to $20 million. if that is the case, a lot of child care providers in this room and within district 10 will not be able to survive. if this it eliminates the funding that we used to augment our violence prevention program -- if the state eliminates the funniest of will -- of met our violence prevention program, we will not be able to continue to fund a lot of the services we have now. if the state decides to eliminate some of the federal funding if they provide for work force development, we will not be able to continue funding the programs that we currently fun. as a result, we are proposing to hold up $1.8 million, so we can figure out how to allocate. we definitely hope to be able to reallocate to meet the highest needs in the community, and today's meeting is extremely important, and i definitely want to h

we have the $6.5 billion budget. a large amount of this is flexible for us to make decisions, making policy choices about what we can change to close the deficit. $306 million in that perspective is almost 25% of the flexible budget. this is a great challenge and that is why we are here tonight. we will be working on this in the mayor's office. we have been working very closely with the board of supervisors to make those decisions. i will leave it at that and turn its back over, and i'll be happy to answer questions. >> thank you, very much. i am going to start to read a number of questions that we have here, and again, if people want to fill loudspeaker cards, we are more than happy to get through them. i will ask the palace here from the city to be as brief as they can and i will try to read through as many of these statements as they are handed to me. this can be applied to a number of people, multiple people. how can you make certain that the adjustment that the mayor referred to in allocating the budget will not b

we are asking you not to cut from rec and park a budget solution in which a non san franciscans, 15 million of home visit the city each year as tourists will help subsidize the cost of basic services for the people who live here. the budget challenges that they san francisco are not unique to the city nor is the devastating impact on the urban park systems. in houston, budget cuts will force the city to close half of its recreation centers. the los angeles park department expects hundreds of layoffs. seattle has curtailed ball field maintenance, and restroom maintenance. baltimore shut half of its recreation centers. the city of detroit closed 77 of its parks. every urban parks system around the country is scrambling to offset service cuts and inadequately -- and inadequate city funding with revenue. denver is increasing its mission in its parks. seattle has nonprofits operating in its recreation centers. staffed with just three gardner's. for the last 56 years we have been aided by the support of the san francisco botanical garden society, a nonprofit member- supported organization. the sa

he has a responsibility under the budget act to send us a responsible budget that changes what we're doing and puts us on a right track. if he wants to do it all by even more tax increases and he submitted already which wa was $1.7 trillion in his budget proposal, so be it, put it out there. let's talk about it. but don't deny we're in a crisis. senator isakson understands finance better than any mind -- anybody in this senate and he lived through and provided leadership during the huge financial crisis that we have. it looks like we moved debt from the private sector to the sovereign government sector and that's why we're being warned that we could have a similar-type crisis is what i understand secretary geithner to admit, erskine bowles an alan simpson to admit. johnny, thank you for your leadership. i know you want nothing more than what's best for america and i'd be glad to just give you an opportunity to share your thoughts at this time. mr. isakson: senator sessions, i appreciate the compliment. it was probably overstated but it's an honor an privilege to serve with you and sen

of the house and the senate chose not to pass a budget at all. this year we had a government shutdown fight that was resolved literally at the 11th hour. and now we have to budget proposal that both almost come from different universes. you on the other hand in virginia close budget shortfalls by 1.8 going to invent 4.2 billion. you did without raising taxes and not blowing up the state. so what are the lessons of your experience for what we see now in the federal budget fight? >> that's a great place to

the president's debt commission chairman gave a statement to the budget committee a weaker so ago in ich they said this nation faces the most predictable economic crisis in its history. so where are request mark the budget law requires three budgets to be submitted. at this point in history, i say that finances, budget, and debt of the greatest issues before our country and the door anything else we are doing. they dwarf anything else we are doing. the president has submitted a budget to raises taxes by $1.5 trillion, that increases the mission -- discretionary spending for the next 10 years. it increases debt every year, causing the interest on our debt to go from $200 billion last year to $940 billion, according to the congressional budget office. they will crowd out spending for things like highways, education, we will go to an $940 billion in interest? this is why we are an unsustainable path as every witnesses said, every witness has told us that. what do we have? the president's irresponsible budget, the most irresponsible under the circumstances i think this nation has ever see

budget. the second one is a logger, a philosophical question. here is why the ryan budget is what i call the harry potter budget. it does not meet the stiff test of reality. it says tax revenues will increase, almost double, over the next 10 years. this is the only source they can provide for that, the heritage foundation study. it predicted there would be huge surpluses and great job growth after the bush tax cuts. what has happened, in fact, 10 years ago total revenues were about $1.90 trillion. today they are $2.20 trillion. even after cutting tax rates, federal revenues in 10 years are going to be $4.30 trillion, almost double what they are now. that is almost impossible, and on the planet will be almost 2% -- on employment will be almost 2%, which had never happened -- unemployment will always be 2%, which has never happened in this country. the other thing you have to realize his after the next 10 years, if the ryan budget were passed, the national debt would still increase by $8 trillion. $15 trillion to $23 trillion. so he does not cut th

van hollen: you will have a democratic budget that will present a very clear choice to the members. it will present a steady predictable cut. that's the center of the debate. so everyone will have an opportunity to vote on the budget. mr. kingston: let me ask specifically, the mulligan budget that the president offered yesterday, will it be on the floor of the house today? mr. van hollen: the president did not offer what we call a budget. he offered what was an outline, an approach that he wants people to look at on a bipartisan basis. that's what the president prosewsed -- proposed yesterday. mr. kingston: i thank my friend for saying this. i think it's an important for the democrats to offer an alternative budget and i'm glad that you will be and there will be five such budgets. if your budgets don't pass we can pick and choose of those and hopefully there will be some of ours that you'll support as well. the president, who yesterday tried to reclaim some territory