WJLA "Jonathan Elias" Transcript: Van Hollen on WJLA: Shutdown Over Women's Health Would Cause Huge Damage to Economy

Interview

JONATHAN ELIAS, WJLA: On the Hill this afternoon, we are now just two weeks away from seeing the federal government run out of money. If no spending bill is passed, the government will shut down. Does this sound familiar? Remember when that happened just a couple of years back? One Maryland congressman has been working to prevent this from happening ever again -- Chris Van Hollen. He joins us live from the Capitol. Congressman, appreciate you taking the time for us this afternoon.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Jonathan, good to be with you.

ELIAS: Explain to me the thing you're working on. This is the Prevent a Government Shutdown Act -- how would it work, and is there any chance of it passing?

VAN HOLLEN: We have to avoid another shameful government shutdown. It cost our economy $24 billion. Hundreds, thousands of jobs lost. So we should have learned our lesson. The Prevent a Government Shutdown Act does two things. It calls on Speaker Boehner to immediately appoint a bipartisan group of legislators -- equal number of Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate -- to come up with a negotiated solution to this so we don't go over the cliff two weeks from now. It also has a failsafe provision that says, if the Speaker doesn't do that or no agreement is reached, the government would continue operating at the levels of investment we need to keep our economy moving ahead and provide for the national defense. So negotiations first, but failsafe mechanisms to make sure we don't shut the government down.

ELIAS: A couple of new wrinkles to the process now. Planned Parenthood has come on a lot of folks' radar screen. There's some that are arguing it should be defunded, and others are saying it absolutely should be defunded. Is that a non-starter in this, or is this up for discussion in this whole process?

VAN HOLLEN: It's not up for discussion in the context of keeping the government open. I'm a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and the women's health programs it provides. If Republicans or the others want to battle and have a fight over that, they should introduce legislation that tries to pass, and we'll fight it out. I will fight them hard because I think those programs are important. But what they shouldn't be doing is using that to shut down the entire federal government and cause huge damage to our economy and disruptions around the country. Two years ago it was an effort by Senator Cruz and others to shut down the government in order to stop the Affordable Care Act. That didn't work. What it did do was cause all this damage to the economy. We really don't want to see a repeat of this over women's health programs. If they want to fight that battle, fight it on its own terms, don't fight it in the context of threatening to disrupt the economy and shut down the government.

ELIAS: Congressman Van Hollen, we appreciate your time, and good luck with passing that act so we don't ever have to have this discussion again. That would be kind of a nice thing.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you. It sure would. Thanks a lot.

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