mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. we should never have gotten to the point where our troops in afghanistan had to ask whether they were going to be paid. that's a scandal. and it's scandalous that our republican colleagues would threaten for the first time in american history to torpedo america's credit worthiness and american jobs unless they succeeded in enacting a budget plan to end the medicare guarantee, slash medicaid and slash critical investments in education in our future. that was the plan. they wanted to do that now and they wanted to have this whole debate again six months from now. why? not to reduce the deficit. if the goal is to reduce the deficit why refuse to end taxpayer subsidies for the oil companies? if reducing the deficit was the purpose, why refuse to end special breaks for corporate jets and the folks at the very high end of the income scale? that wasn't the plan. the plan was to use this moment to threaten the economy, to try and slash the social safety net and those critical investments in ed

mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentlelady, a member of the budget comttee, ms. moore. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from wisconsin is recognized for one minute. ms. moore: thank you so much for yielding. so many of my colleagues have said that it was necessary to storm the white house and take the country hostage in the name of their grandchildren. so i wanted to go on record talking about what i want for my grandchildren. i wantead start for my grandchildren. i want w.i.c. programs and early childhood education for my programs, i want my kids to go to a school where they can participate in the science fair. i want immunizations for them. i want research done for food safety to make sure the chicken nuggets are safe, i want clean air and clean water for them. i want jobs where they invent things like new energy sources and, yes, i want them to be contributing citizens and pay taxes and i want a safety net for them in case they are disabled and when they become elderly and if they

mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield a minute to the gentlelady from california, ms. lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from california is recognized for one minute. ms. lee: thank you very much. thank you, mr. speaker, and thank you for yielding and also for your very bold and effective leadership, mr. van hollen. i rise in strong opposition to this unbalanced debt ceiling bill. this is an unbalanced approach, we all know that, we've heard that. and furthermore this debt ceiling bill should have never been an option in terms of having to come to this floor to debate this and we should have, like democrats and republican presidents have done in the past, we should have lifted the debt ceiling. rightfully so, many of us are concerned about these discretionary cuts. what are these cuts going to do as it relates to our senior citizens, low income veds and the poor? -- individuals and the poor? this debt ceiling bill does nothing to address the real crisis in our country, the lack of jobs and economic growth

mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. ske

mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. we should never have gotten to the point where our troops in afghanistan had to ask whether they were going to be paid. that's a scandal. and it's scandalous that our republican colleagues would threaten for the first time in american history to torpedo america's credit worthiness and american jobs unless they succeeded in enacting a budget plan to end the medicare guarantee, slash medicaid and slash critical investments in education in our future. that was the plan. they wanted to do that now and they wanted to have this whole debate again six months from now. why? not to reduce the deficit. if the goal is to reduce the deficit why refuse to end taxpayer subsidies for the oil companies? if reducing the deficit was the purpose, why refuse to end special breaks for corporate jets and the folks at the very high end of the income scale? that wasn't the plan. the plan was to use this moment to threaten the economy, to try and slash the social safety net and those critical investments in ed

mr. van hollen said the staffr happened before. we never placed any doubt in the public market of whether this would happen. the clever people are of the board room wondering if we if onsequences of our inaction. but i'm more concerned also nbout the kitchen table and ando tremendous impact on america's fam families as the center of therod table and talk about how theye theiring to make and pay their bills. social security is the impact, will their checks arrive this week or next week whenever they, do.medicare is medicare and medicaidcaid so something that they can count on? well, after months and monthso and months to reach an agreement that could have been reached a long time ago it'sou not so brit it took to achieve it would have been accomplished months ago,nta and at least have the merit of ondenceg confidence earlier, sooner rather than at the latest possible moment. so we must make sure that we say why are we here today that somey other day to go through these go motions and that's another reason why i'm supporting this bil

mr. van hollen. >> mr. speaker, may i ask much time as remaining? >> seven and a half minutes, thh gentleman from maryland has eight and a half minutes. islamic at this time i would like to yield three and a half minutes to mr. langford.speaker: >> recognized for three and a half minutes. >> thank you mr. s i would say i would love to the will to come to oklahoma city we have the opportunity to do that but to talk to the great folks in my district the one thingstrt that comes up again and again is they are really frustrated and they're looking for things to be able to change in washington.in. the see how broken the system is and the way we interact.. they are legitimately frustrated and i can tell you they have lost trust in what we are doing and how we are doing it. we quite frankly as a federal government we are trying to doaf too many things and we cannot afford all of the things we are doing. so in some very whole process has united the nation to be able to look simply at $14.3 trillion in debt and to say even as a nation we have ah problem. it

mr. van hollen of maryland. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3 and 4 of house resolution 375, the house stands adjourned until 11:30 a.m. on august 16, >> the house is back on september 7 with live coverage here on c-span. the appointment of the republican and democratic members of the joint committee on deficit. these are the members. the senate members were named the other day. you can find out more information on our web site, c- span.org/deficit. that is alice rivlin on your screen. she is a former white house budget director. they are discussing the deficit reduction deal. its front to around 11:30. our live coverage from i what will get under way at 11:30 eastern. >> if you are familiar with plan, andn bowls le the other plan, those plants were balanced plans which did three things, which i think are things you have to do if you have a long-term deficit problem. they reduced the growth of entitlement spending in different ways -- medicare, medicaid, social security. they got more tax revenues b