MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

Interview

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, today appeared on MSNBC'S Morning Joe to discuss the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations. Video of the interview is available here and the transcript is below.

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: Mika wants to stay there. They are asking the Prime Minister questions. Let's go to Washington and talk to Democratic Congressman from Maryland, and Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, Representative Chris Van Hollen. Chris, things seem so placid in Washington.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC: And polite. Except that one e-mail.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: I was going to say, they are making our budget debate look tame and boring.

SCARBOROUGH: Very, very boring. Let's talk about the news that broke yesterday. The President had some kind things to say about the Senate Gang of Six budget plan. It's a broad outline; there are some specifics but mainly just guide posts. What do you and the House leadership on the Democratic side think of this?

VAN HOLLEN: I give these guys a lot of credit for coming together around the table in a bipartisan way to hammer things out. And what we are doing is we are taking a close look at it because as you said, there are still a lot of details that have not come out. The overall framework mirrors what the President was trying to do and in some ways what the Speaker of the House was apparently trying to do, which is to get a big deal in a balanced way. So, that's the good news. Again, the details still have to come out and Senator Durbin, a member of the Gang of Six said yesterday, they don't have legislative language and it hasn't been scored by CBO. And so the question is, you know, what can be done between now and August 2nd, if anything with the plan or do we need to continue to proceed with a back-up plan, Plan B?

SCARBOROUGH: Chris, I was going to ask earlier, last hour to Steve Rattner who was here had suggested that if this plan were to go forward, there would have to be a month or two month extension to allow the committee chairmen and chairwomen in the House and Senate to do their business. This would be the most dramatic reform of entitlement system and the tax code since the Reagan era. So, there would have to be an extension of time for the debt ceiling, would there not?

VAN HOLLEN: I think that's right. We would have to work out some interim arrangement if we were to proceed down that road. Again, exactly what the time line would be and that question would remain to be seen. But look the good news is this provides some additional momentum to the idea of getting something big done. Again, haven't seen every detail and I'm not sure that I would agree with every detail, but the overall concept takes us in the right direction.

SCARBOROUGH: And the right neighborhood Mika, we are talking about a $3.7 trillion deal. It's not perfect. It's not going to make either side happy. If we could get close to $4 trillion in debt reduction, that would send a good signal to the markets for some time.

BRZEZINSKI: The only thing I question, Steve Rattner, is if there's an interim arrangement does that add more uncertainty to the overall economic picture that we don't need?

STEVE RATTNER: The market yesterday was incredibly excited about this plan. The stock market had a great day. The bond market had a good day. The stock market is going to start off with another good day today. The market is really excited that there may be a break in this gridlock. If the market were told, look, it's another month or two, but this is where we are going, I think the market would be fine with that. My question for the congressman is yes, there are a lot of details we don't know. But this is very similar to Bowles-Simpson. We know basically what's in this plan. Do you think that -- do you think that you can get these House Republicans to break from the pledge they have all taken?

VAN HOLLEN: That is the major question. as we heard on the floor of the House yesterday during debate, they have not moved off this point, which is you cannot have one penny -- coming from either closing tax loopholes or raising revenues somewhere else -- go for the purpose of deficit reduction. Of course, that's exactly what this Gang of Six plan does. It raises approximately $1 trillion. It does it by reducing the rates and closing some loopholes and frankly taking down some popular deductions. That does violate what the House Republicans have said.

SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, that leads to the next question, obviously. And I'm sure you have been talking about it a good bit. If you don't get the 90 or so Republican freshmen, are there going to be enough Democrats to work together with John Boehner and Republican chairmen and chairwomen and other leaders in the Caucus to get the 218 votes you need to pass this, if it passes the Senate?

VAN HOLLEN: Well Joe, here is the point. People really do need to digest what is in there. We still haven't seen the full plan. Yesterday, a lot of us were calling over to Senator Conrad's office asking for more detail and they said the details are forthcoming in the next couple of days. It's really hard to get our Caucus to focus on this without some of the detail because --

SCARBOROUGH: That's certainly understandable. I guess the question, though, that you will be asked if you push for any deal with these broad outlines from members of your own Democratic Caucus would be why are we doing the Republican freshman's work for them? Why are we taking the tough votes and allowing them to go home and demagogue against Democrats who run against them about how they were too pure to vote to increase the debt ceiling?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, that debate certainly will go on within the Democratic Caucus. I think the overwhelming majority of our Caucus wants to make sure America can pay its bills after August 2nd. In fact, a big chunk of our Caucus said without any conditions let's raise the debt ceiling. So, I think our guys want to do what most of us think is the responsible thing, which to say the United States has to pay for the bills for obligations that we have incurred. These are bills that need to be paid on decisions Congress made in the past, right or wrong. So, just like no family can wake up one day and decide, you know, I'm not going to pay that bill, I'm only going to pay that bill, I think our members on the Democratic side are prepared to deal with that question. Whether they are prepared to accept something along the lines of the Gang of Six proposal will depend on the details. And that's why it's so important to get them quickly. I think we all agree. And Senator Durbin said it himself the other day; we are not going to be able to squeeze that whole plan into debate between now and August 2nd. We recognize that. The question is going to be, do you do something short term, you know? The downside of doing something short term is it puts you on a month-to-month potentially on the debt ceiling.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.

VAN HOLLEN: That can continue to create a lot of uncertainty. Let's see where it takes us in the next 48 hours. We still need to proceed with Plan B in case this thing unravels.

SCARBOROUGH: All right. Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Thanks for being with us.

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