Van Hollen Opening Statement: Restoring the Trust for Young Americans

Today Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, made opening remarks at the House Budget Committee hearing on Restoring the Trust for Young Americans. Below is a transcript of his remarks:

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to join the Chairman in thanking all of our witnesses today -- a lot of young people who have accomplished much at a young age. And I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that as someone who has three children between the ages of 19 and 25, I share the view that we want this generation to have a successful and strong and secure future. And it is important that we discuss long-term challenges, and I'm going to get to those in a moment.

"But first, it's a reality that we're facing a very pressing issue here in our country right now. It is an immediate issue. And that is, three weeks from now, if we don't come to some agreement here in Congress, we face another government shutdown. A shameful government shutdown. It happened two years ago. It cost our economy $24 billion, according to Standard & Poor's. It created huge disruptions and uncertainty around the country.

"So Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that we should be very focused on that issue, which is going to cost our economy right now, even as we discuss these longer-term issues. And I know that you would like to do that personally, but, as of right now, Speaker Boehner has not come to the table. We, the Democratic leadership, have asked the Speaker and the Budget Committee together to come to the table to come to an agreement to avoid a shutdown. So far, the Speaker has not come to the table. Now I know the Speaker says he does not want a government shutdown. As I recall, two years ago at this time, he was saying the same thing. And Senator Cruz and others were determined to shut down the government to shut down the Affordable Care Act. The Speaker said he didn't want it to happen. It happened. This time around, Senator Cruz and others are saying they're willing to shut down the government to defund women's health programs, Planned Parenthood. So I would suggest to everybody that we should be focused like a laser beam on preventing this crisis, which is three weeks away.

"Now when it comes to the long-term issues, the challenge is to make sure we deal with these in a balanced way. The reality is that the primary cause for the increased cost going forward in things like Social Security and Medicare is because we have more baby boomers -- more and more Americans are going to be retiring. In fact, over the next ten years you are going to see a one-third increase in the number of Americans who will be eligible for Social Security and Medicare that they've put in to.

"And so I'm baffled by our colleagues' budget, which says that even as we have millions more Americans retiring, we're going to allocate less revenue as a percent of our economy toward helping those Americans achieve retirement and health care security than was the case the last time we balanced the budget. In other words, more Americans, millions more retiring, and yet as a share of our economy, they want to provide less, both for investing in education and ensuring the future of those individuals.

"And despite the claim that this is such a pressing issue, our Republican colleagues have refused to shut down one tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit or helping to shore up Medicare. Let me just show you a chart here. What this chart shows is that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the revenue from tax expenditures, so-called tax breaks, exceeds the amount that we spend in any one year on Social Security. Exceeds the amount we spend on Medicare and Medicaid combined.

"Now, let's go to the next chart. What this shows is that 17 percent of the benefits of those tax expenditures and tax breaks go to the top one percent of American income earners.

"So the position our Republican colleagues have taken is we've got to address these issues, but we're not prepared to close one tax loophole to do that. In fact, they passed a proposal to eliminate the estate tax on estates of couples over $10 million. They are growing that number on the previous chart of tax expenditures, even as they tell us that they want to address these pressing issues in the short term and the long term.

"So it is completely contradictory to say that this is absolutely an important priority, and at the same time to say you are unwilling to take away a tax break for a single hedge fund manager in order to accomplish that priority. So I look forward to the discussion, Mr. Chairman, but it's important to have this framework as we move along. Thank you."

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