CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript

Interview

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Joining us on the phone right now, someone who has worked closely with Paul Ryan, Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. He's the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. The chairman of that committee is Paul Ryan, as we all know.

Congressman, thanks very much for talking to us. Tell us, what do you think of this decision by Mitt Romney?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, D-MD.: Well, Wolf, I've worked closely with Paul Ryan, and we get along personally, but we have very strong disagreements on budget issues and the economy. And I think this choice does crystallize a lot of issues in a way that's going to help the president, because what Mitt Romney is signaling by this decision is that he wants to double down on an economic plan that helps people like Mitt Romney at the expense of the rest of the country. At the expense of everybody else, because if you look at the Ryan and now Romney budget, that's exactly what it does. It provides these very big tax breaks to folks at the very high end of the income scale, and asks everybody else to sacrifice for the purpose of deficit reduction, while asking nothing from folks at the top.

BLITZER: He's made it clear to me in interviews over the years, he recognizes there needs to be compromise. He has to work with Democrats. Has that been your experience with him personally as the two top members of the Budget Committee?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, Wolf, all I can say is that the Republicans have put forward their budget on the floor of the House. It's an uncompromising budget. They rejected every single one of the amendments that Democrats on the Budget Committee offered. It's a very lopsided approach compared to the bipartisan plans that have been recommended by groups like Simpson-Bowles or Rivlin-Domenici. It doesn't even come close. And it doesn't come close because all of those plans say that we need shared responsibility. And the Ryan plan doesn't ask the wealthiest to contribute one penny to deficit reduction. They ask everybody else to contribute, which is why it does hit seniors on Medicare, why it hits -- hits education budgets, and why it hits middle-income taxpayers.

BLITZER: Listen to this exchange that was caught on tape last year by ABC News between Paul Ryan and former President Bill Clinton. Listen to this. It's fascinating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's Paul Ryan.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How are you?

REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS.: I'm doing great.

CLINTON: It's good to see you.

RYAN: Good to see you, too.

CLINTON: I'm glad we won this race in New York, but I hope the Democrats don't use it as an excuse to do nothing.

RYAN: My guess is it's going to sink into paralysis is what's going to happen. You know the math. It's just -- we knew we were putting ourselves out there, but you've got to start this, you got to get out there. You've got to get this thing moving.

CLINTON: Do you want to talk about it?

RYAN: Yes. I'll give you a call. Thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Sounds like they were equally frustrated in that little conversation. I don't know if you could hear it as well as I could. What did you think?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the reality is that the Democrats have put forward a number of proposals to modernize Medicare. We just have a very different way of doing it. Our way says that we need to put more focus on the value of care provided, as opposed to the current system, which provides a lot of focus on the volume of care. But the Republican plan that Ryan's put forward shifts the costs and the burdens onto seniors. And I know President Clinton does not support that plan.

What President Clinton supports is the kind of balanced approach that has been recommended by Simpson-Bowles, Rivlin-Domenici. Again, not every recommendation, but that framework, and I can tell you, Wolf, that the president's budget proposal comes a lot closer to that balanced approach than anything that Ryan or the Republicans in the House have put forward. In fact, Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the committee, just wrote a column recently to say exactly that.

BLITZER: But, as you know, Paul Ryan was a member of the Erskine Bowles commission. He rejected it. But so did President Obama. He rejected it as well, even though he named that commission. So here's an area where, for different reasons, Paul Ryan and President Obama agree. They didn't like the Erskine Bowles recommendations.

VAN HOLLEN: What Bowles and Simpson have both said is that they looked at the president's budget proposal, and it comes a lot closer to the balanced approach they have proposed than the Republican budget that's been put forward in the House by Ryan and the House Republican leadership. And the reason for that is that the Ryan budget doesn't ask for one penny from the very wealthiest Americans to help reduce our deficit. And the math is pretty clear. If you say the wealthiest don't have to pay a penny more, it means your budget is going to sock it really hard to everybody else. And that's exactly what their budget does. And they've been very uncompromising about the approach they've taken. In fact, as you know, last summer, they threatened to have the United States default on its obligations for the first time in our history if we didn't enact their budget proposal.

BLITZER: Chris Van Hollen is the Democratic congressman from Maryland and a colleague of Paul Ryan on the House Budget Committee. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Wolf.

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