mr. van hollen: mr. chairman. the chair: the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: i refer the gentleman to the bill, the piece of the document i referenced several times already. this kind of work is done. what you're asking for here is to again leave off part of the equation. for example, the recovery bill. the recovery bill was primarily an appropriations bill. leave off part of the equation, but also when it comes to the revenue piece, skew the request. i yield two minutes to the gentleman from oregon, mr. blumenauer. the chair: the gentleman from oregon is recognized for two minutes. mr. blumenauer: i appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and his leadership. what we're talking about here this afternoon is one of a package of four budget proposals from our republican friends on the budget committee that are in total going to obscure the budgeting process, make it more complex, more expensive, and actually more confusing for the american public. i agree with my good -- what my good friend said about the dynamic scoring. there are already vehicles availab

mr. van hollen. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. van hollen: inc. the record should be clear that every year that the congress has frozen federal employee pay, we have also frozen congressional pay. what we have not done is tried to hold federal employee pay hostage to what we do on congressional pay. we should be very clear that we all on the democratic side support freezing congressional pay in the year 2013. indeed, mr. cummings and i, mr. hoyer and others, have introduced legislation to do just that. it's h.r. 3858. the democratic leadership asked that we bring that up on the suspension calendar today. we were denied that opportunity. and so i now ask unanimous consent that after we complete debate on this bill, we add to today's suspension calendar h.r. 3858 so that we can vote as a body on freezing congressional pay. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the gentleman's unanimous consent agreement? >> i do object to the unanimous consent agreement. mr. van hollen: this illustrates the point exactly. we just heard mr. d

mr. van hollen: will the gentleman yield? mr. culberson: i will. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. i hear what you're saying with veterans. absolutely true. on a bipartisan basis, we understand we're going to make sure we support the veterans. and we're going to make sure that they get the cost of living increase and the reality is you mentioned the defense budget. that's 50% of the discretionary budget right there. are we going to make sure that we provide increases to make sure that we can maintain the same national defense? so here's the point. so, you're going to create a document for the american people that says, hey, we're going to be spending this much in year 10 for veterans when we know that that's not true. we know right now, in fact, you've just said on the floor of this house, that number's going to be a lot bigger. and my point is, we can make it bigger, we can make it smaller. this bill doesn't save a dime in terms of what decis

mr. van hollen. you said normally you don't like to give a comment with regard to fiscal policy, tax bills in the like. and i thought really, mr. chairman? is that still your opinion? i was truly taken aback when recently the fed issued an unsolicited white paper, if you will, on housing policy whether, if you didn't advocate for you certainly mirrored much of the positions of this administration. so i don't know how the two go together. on the one hand you say you don't get involved in those areas. here you had a white paper not solicited from us. i know you're protective of your independence, when you advocate for a position like that, why would you issue such a paper when we don't ask for it? >> congressman, first, the fed has a lot of interest in housing. it's important for the economy. it's important for monetary policy. we are bank supervisors, swoe ear interested in mortgage and lending -- >> so let me ask you this then. congress has a lot of interest in monetary policy. i guess the comparable

mr. van hollen: i thank the chairman. i thank the gentleman from texas for his words, and i just want to hearken back to what the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. cole, said who's in opposition to the bill but he did make clear that in his opinion this bill is constitutional. i really think we should put that question aside. as the chairman of the committee has pointed out on several occasions, congress gets the last word on this issue. congress gets an up or down majority vote. we're simple requiring that congress take a vote on savings that the president recommends for the taxpayer and we believe we should do that in the light of day. it's a small step. it's a little curious to hear one of the solutions offered from some of the folks opposed to this bill to give the president even more authority. on the one hand they say, well, we shouldn't do this because you're giving the president too much leverage. the amendment they mentioned, of course, would give the president even more leverage over tax expenditures and mandatory spe

mr. van hollen: i yield the gentleman an additional minute. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for one more minute. mr. pascrell: thank you, madam speaker. you squeeze them so they lay off police officers, firefighters, and you're telling them, madam speaker, don't worry about it. this will all be over. this is simply we are all going to have shared pain. yeah, sure shared. this bill will jeopardize our economic recovery by putting the brakes on the housing market. it will bring us closer to another debt ceiling debate. madam speaker, i think that's where we want to head, some of us. let's have another debate over the debt ceiling. let's have another debate as to whether we should pay our bills so we can shut down the place. and for you to preside over and get folks to believe that if you shut the government down maybe that wouldn't be so bad either. not paying our debts wouldn't be so bad. i don't know what planet we're living on. this country needs pro-growth economic policies. we need to take actions. the first action we should take is t

mr. van hollen. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. van hollen: inc. the record should be clear that every year that the congress has frozen federal employee pay, we have also frozen congressional pay. what we have not done is tried to hold federal employee pay hostage to what we do on congressional pay. we should be very clear that we all on the democratic side support freezing congressional pay in the year 2013. indeed, mr. cummings and i, mr. hoyer and others, have introduced legislation to do just that. it's h.r. 3858. the democratic leadership asked that we bring that up on the suspension calendar today. we were denied that opportunity. and so i now ask unanimous consent that after we complete debate on this bill, we add to today's suspension calendar h.r. 3858 so that we can vote as a body on freezing congressional pay. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the gentleman's unanimous consent agreement? >> i do object to the unanimous consent agreement. mr. van hollen: this illustrates the point exactly. we just heard mr. d

mr. van hollen: they are an easy political target for some, as mr. hoyer said. but it is irresponsible to denigrate their good work. these are the men and women who care for our veterans and many of our wounded soldiers. these are the people in our intelligence community who helped track down osama bin laden. these are the folks at n.i.h. and elsewhere who help find treatments and cures that help prevent diseases that plague every american family. they are the folks who protect our borders. they are the folks that help run the medicare and social security system. they are the folks in the capitol hill police that protect this great center of democracy right here. so while this conference report does many good things, we need to send a message it's time to stop scapegoating federal employees and using them as the piggy bank for our national objectives. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to a member of the conference committee, the gentlewoman from north carolina. the speaker pro te

mr. van hollen: they are an easy political target for some, as mr. hoyer said. but it is irresponsible to denigrate their good work. these are the men and women who care for our veterans and many of our wounded soldiers. these are the people in our intelligence community who helped track down osama bin laden. these are the folks at n.i.h. and elsewhere who help find treaents and cures that help prevent diseases that plague every american family. they are the folks who protect our borders. they are the folks that help run the medicare andocial security system. they are the folks in the capitol hill police that protect this great center of democracy right here. so while this conference report does many good things, we need to send a message it's time to stop scapegoating federal employees and usg them as the piggy bank for our national objectives. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to a member of the conference committee, the gentlewoman from north carolina. the speaker pro tempore:

mr. van hollen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to join the chairman in weekending you, dr. elmendorf, and your two daughters. it's great to have members of the family here today. and i want to realference the reportived yesterday na the chairman mentioned because while it shows that the economy remains very fragile, it also shows that it is slowly recovering. it demonstrates that we still have much work to do to create jobs, tackle the deaf sanltd return the budget to a long-term fiscally stable path. but for a moment, let's focus on the positive signs of the budding economic recovery and remember where we were just three years ago. if you could please put up the slide. no, the first slide. this slide right here. what this slide shows is that the day president bush left office, the day that president obama was sworn in, the economy was collapsing at an even faster rate than originally thought. the gross domestic product was plummeting at a rate of 8.9%, in other words negative 8.9% gdp and we're shedding 840,000 jobs a month. when the president was sworn in, 840,000 jobs we

mr. van hollen raised and mr. crapo raised as well. we can dispose the issue of the social security trust fund at the same time. >> i heard his comment. we are trying to stay focused on the issues right now. because of that, i don't feel a need to give a long speech. obviously being from michigan, i understand the importance of unemployment insurance. i hear that we see broad agreeme agreement. i would like to move forward and address the next issue. the issue of unemployment. >> mr. chairman. it is only fair. we are all in agreement. both sides. both bodies. ten more months for the payroll tax for the end of the year. i think in the air, there is a sense that will need to be paid for. >> yes. >> but that raises the next question. will we find enough money that we can agree on to pay for it? i think you appropriately said that it is an issue we will deal with a little later. work on the substance first. if we cannot agree how to pay for it or to the degree we cannot, we may have to look at other options on the payroll tax. that is mayb

mr. van hollen. >> thank you mr. chairman and again thank you director zients for being here. let me pick up on a couple point the chairman raised. the simpson's-bowles commission set $4 trillion in deficit reduction as their ten-year wind window. and they set something in that range. included in their recommendations was reducing discretionary spending by actually over a trillion dollars. as part of the budget control act we passed we cut discretionary spending by approximately $1 trillion, it seems reasonable and i think ordinary americans watching this proceeding would agree that you should be able to count the effort that we made already towards the $4 trillion, after all it was recommended we do it and we did it. that is a trillion dollars. we also, as you pointed out, put in place this mechanism to achieve another trillion dollars through a sequester, it has across the board cuts to defense and nondefense investments and what you proposed is another better, more balanced way o achieving that $1.2 trillion deficit reduction. just because it's built in that assumptions tha

mr. van hollen. >> thank you mr. chairman and there director zients. the bipartisan commission said $4 trillion in deficit reduction as their window. and they set something in that range. included in their recreatioomm d recommendations was reducing expending by over a trillion dollars. as part of the budget control act we passed we cut discretionary spending by approximately $1 trillion, it seems reasonable and i think as understands that you should count the effort you made towards the $4 trillion, after all it was recommended we do it and we did it. that is a trillion dollars. and you have a mechanism to achieve another trillion dollars through a sequester, it has across the board cuts to defense and nondefense investments and what you proposed is another better, more balanced way of achievi achie achieve the reduction. just because it's built in that this massive $1.2 trillion cut that nobody feels that is the best approach, just because you came up with a better way of doing it doesn't mean that your budget should not be credited with that. that m

mr. van hollen.

mr. van hollen, using that as a lead in, what are the state of talks right now? i understand that some of the talks breaking down over the weekend were pinned to length of time and off sets. what can you tell us? >> i don't want to get into a lot of detail other than to say i think you know the democrats proposed a permanent doc fix. we had proposed as part of that that we use some of the war savings. it is not clear whether our house republican colleagues will go along with that. i should point out some of the senate republicans have been supportive of that idea, but house republicans did not take kindly to it in the public meetings, and so we're looking for other alternatives. as you say, you can have anything from a one-year fix to a permanent fix. >> on the war savings, a lot of people say this is not a legitimate offset, this money that wasn't going to be spent anyway. how do you all respond to that? >> why don't you look at this year's budget and what's been happening. the reality is that the war savings budget, the budget that's been put aside for the war

mr. van hollen: they are an easy political target for some, as mr. hoyer said. but it is irresponsible to denigrate their good work. these are the men and women who care for our veterans and many of our wounded soldiers. these are the people in our intelligence community who helped track down osama bin laden. these are the folks at n.i.h. and elsewhere who help find treatments and cures that help prevent diseases that plague every american family. they are the folks who protect our borders. they are the folks that help run the medicare and social security system. they are the folks in the capitol hill police that protect this great center of democracy right here. so while this conference report does many good things, we need to send a message it's time to stop scapegoating federal employees and using them as the piggy bank for our national objectives. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to a member of the conference committee, the gentlewoman from north carolina. the speaker pro te

mr. van hollen. >> thank you for your leadership on the disclose act, as well as making for the american people get a fair shake, and i am pleased to be here with my colleagues, mr. israel and mr. ellison. in announcing to disclose act today, the american people deserve a political system that is fair, transparent, and accountable. if the political system is fair, transparent, and a campbell, we believe that will result and policies that are fair, and as the president said in his state of the union address, the american people deserve a fair shake. every body deserves the same fair shake, the same shot and opportunity in this country, and to do that we should have a political system that responds to their needs, not to who is bankrolling various campaigns. what this says is let's get rid of secret money in american politics. let's make sure that when people contribute to these outside groups, whether they are contributors or corporations or other entities, whoever they may be, they have to disclose who they are. they have to report who the contributors are. the american people a right to

mr. van hollen just mentioned but the monetary issues are before him, specifically how does he keep growthben bernanke has essentially debunked what congressman mulvaney just said about the president's approach. in fact, bernanke has said that the actions taken by the federal reserve and the actions taken by the recovery bill helped prevent a second great depression, helped stop the free fall. we are now climbing out of that. historically it's always tougher to climb out of a recession that's precipitated about you a financial meltdown, and we know that. the good news is that for the last 22 months we've seen 3 million private sector jobs grow. are we satisfied with the pace? of course not, but one of the lessons i think ben bernanke is going to talk about is that it would be a mistake to too quickly take any action that would send the economy into a slowdown. if you cut too quickly in critical investments, you will have that unintended effect. so, yes, we need to come together right now on a long-term deficit reduction plan but, again, don't do anything in the short term that would jeopar

mr. van hollen, mr. cardin, to name a few -- a couple of the conferees plus our distinguished whip who has been a champion for our federal employees. they do great work for our country. we all have to make sacrifices in this. they should not carry an undue burden especially when we have an alternative which is called our war savings to cover this. >> [inaudible question] >> i will leave that to you to ask him about his style and his change. i'm just glad that the american people that the drumbeat that president obama created across the country -- remember public sentiment is everything, and the public overwhelmingly supported a payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. the public overwhelmingly supported that we have unemployment compensation and the rest of the package. the payroll tax, since you confined it to that, the payroll tax cut unpaid for in response to the argument we are making, why are we paying for this when we don't pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country? i just think t

mr. van hollen before, and you said normally you don't like to give a comment with regard to policy and taxills and the like, and i thought, really, mr. chaian? is that still your opinion? i was truly taken aback. just recently the fed issued an unsolicited white paper, if you will, on housing policy, where, if you didn't advocate for, you certainly mirrored much of the positions of this administration. so, i don't know how the two go together. on one hand you say you don't get involved in these areas, but here you had a white paper that was not solicited from us. i know you're protective of your independence, but when you advocate for a position like that, why would you issue such a paper when we don't ask for it? >> congressman, first, the fed has a lot of interest in housing. it's important for the economy. it's important for monetary policy. we are bank supervisors, so we're interested in mortgage and lending -- >> so let me ask you this then. congress has a lot of interest in monetary policy. i guess the comparable would be for us to do a house resolution with regard to monetary policy

mr. van hollen is going to comment. >> thank you, mr. levin. i just want to start by emphasizing a point where i hope we will eventually have consensus, where our priorities should be on the three items that were mentioned. extending the payroll tax cut, extending unemployment insurance for folks who are out of work, and it deals with the doc fix. it seems to me that the next round of issues, if there are to be any, should be those that we have consensus so we are not slowing down the priority work and focus on the other 3. we just had a conversation on the boiler mact rules. clearly there is a difference of opinion that that would slow the process down. with respect to bonus depreciation, i agree. i think there is a very strong argument to be made for bonus depreciation especially as the economy remains in a fragile state. you laid out some statistics from the treasury department. it makes sense. there may be some extenders with a -- where there could be a consensus. we have been focused here on the policy issues. there is a very important que

van hollen. as well as, mr. speaker, h.r. 3581, the budget and accounting transparency act sponsored by congressman scott garrett. in addition, the house will act on legislation passed in the senate yesterday commonly referred to as the stock act. finally, the house may consider h.r. 1734, the civilian property realignment act sponsored by congressman jeff denham. mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman from maryland, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his information. would ask him on the timing, the conference committee has met twice on the payroll tax cut, the unemployment insurance, and the so-called doc fix to ensure the fact that doctors are compensated and will be available for medicare patients. conference committee, mr. leader, has met twice since december 23. we adopted a motion to instruct overwhelmingly through the house to make sure that they reported back by february 17. i think you may have read my comments

mr. van hollen of maryland for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the requests are granted. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the the gentlewoman from virgin islands, ms. christensen is recognized as the designee of the minority leader. mrs. christensen: thank you, mr. speaker. this evening, the congressional black caucus is pleased to have a few minutes of special order time to again come back to the issue of voter protection. as we know, many states have either passed laws restricting voter participation in elections or are in the process of doing so. and these are attacks as we said last week, have taken many forms. did expanding the ban that prevents felons from voting, cutting election administration budgets, curtailing early voting, eliminating same-day registration and i have to say two members of the congressional black caucus, keith ellison and gwen moore, introduced just in november, a bill that would protect those rights and restore same-day registration and also same-day

mr. van hollen and i put forward. that agreement would, as the current agreement would say that the only individuals paying for this bill out of 315 million americans are the two million civilian workers who work for us, who work for all of us, who day after day, week after week, month after month make sure we give the services to the people of the united states, protect the united states, ensure that our food is safe, ensure that we have amphibious agents on the job, -- make sure we have f.b.i. agents on the job, these are all civilian employees. highly skilled. highly trained. highly educated and, yes highly motivated. and every day they give outstanding service to the people of the united states. we talk here and we pass laws here but none of those -- none of that talk and none of those laws makes a difference unless somebody implements what we say and the policies that we set. this congress is on the path to be the most anti-federal worker congress that i have served in. and i'm going to place that in context for

mr. levin. >> thank you. by the way, congressman van hollen is at a budget committee hearing, so he decided to stay there for a bit. i told him i thought he was using wise judgment, because the importance of that, and he'll be here as soon as possible. we need to extend this program to pick up senator casey with your comments. the last year we have the data for, 2010, only one in five poor children were receiving tanf assistance. one in fife. and that's the lowest level since 1965. i think it also should be mentioned that despite the depth of the recession, and these are the figures that i have, that since the summer of 2008, the tanf caseload has increased only rather lightly from 2008 july through 2011 june, the tanf caseload increased 15%, roughly 250,000 families. and this is at a time, as i said, of exceptionally high unemployment. and we're now trying to gather the figures. we don't have them. as to how many people have exhausted their unemployment insurance. but it's far larger a number than those who have become part of the tanf program. so this i think underlines the absolute importance of continuin

mr. ran shol -- van hollen. another opportunity of things that we can do here in this new congress to bring common sense to our budgeting process. it's a bipartisan attempt, madam speaker, to provide both congress and the president with all of the tools necessary to get our fiscal challenges under control and it exemplifies what can happen here in this body when we're willing to listen to folks back home and come together to try to make a difference here in congress. in the 111th congress, madam speaker, nondefense discretionary spending was increased by almost 25%. this congress, this body, working with the senate, increased nondefense discretionary spending by almost 25%. now, if your constituents are like mine, madam speaker, have they had that budget around their family dinner table, they could have found some items that they could have done without. in exchange for not putting their children and their grandchildren further and further and further in the hole, further and further and further under the mounta

mr. chairman, thank you. >> thank you. chairman bernanke, the floor is yours. >> thank you. >> chir man ryan, ranking member van hollen and other members of the committee, i appreciate this opportunity to discuss my views on economic outlook, monetary policy and the challenges facing federal fiscal policymakers. over the past 2 1/2 years, u.s. economy has been gradually recovering from a deep recession. while conditions have certainly improved over this period, the pace of the recovery has been frustratingly slow. particularly from the perspective of the millions of workers who remain unemployed or underemployment. moreover, this sluggish expansion has left the economy vulnerable to shocks. indeed last year supply chain disruption stemming from the earthquake in japan, a surge in the prices of oil and other commodities and spillovers from the european debt crisis risked derailing the economy. fortunately over the last few months, spending and job market activity have shown signs of improvement. in projections just released, participants indicated they expected somewhat stronger growth this year than in 2011. the outlook r

van hollen? >> thank you, mr. levin. look, i think we all benefit from the federal employees doing research at nih into lifesaving cures and treatments. i think we all benefit from the folks in the intelligence community who help track down osama bin laden. i don't think this is an issue of whether or not we represent a small number of federal employees. again, i think we all benefit and i think the american people benefit from the. let me start that those mr. up to and referenced in the house. the reason that had such a big vote, i think the gentleman knows, is because you couple a freeze on congressional with a freeze on all federal employees salaries as mr. card mention. i think we can all settle the question of the pay freeze for congressional salaries. we can all support that. that chairman was to entertain a motion, we can do that right now but let's not mix up of the to. and the reason you have that vote was come and heard from a lot of my college. they were afraid to be accused of trying to protect their own pay

van hollen leadership that failed by one vote in the senate. he did not succeed because they didn't have 60 democrats. if we think about this to the public and mr. allison is going to address that, we believe the pressure will be on even without a law because shareholders, employee customers will want to know what the political contributions are to compare. i yield the floor to the distinguished element for maryland the ranking democrat on the budget committee. he serves on the conference for the federal tax cut and he is the author of the disclosed that from the previous conference and has reintroduced it today. >> thank you, leader pelosi and thank you for your leadership on the disclosed that as well as making sure the american people get a fair shake and i am pleased to be here with my colleagues, mr. israel and mr. allison. we are announcing the disclosed that today. the american people deserve a political system that is fair, transparent and accountable and the political system is fair, transparent and accountable, we believe that will result in policies that are fair to the american people. and instead of the union address as we've said