MSNBC Interview - Transcript: Sequester

Interview

Today Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, appeared on MSNBC to discuss the sequester and the House Democrats' continued efforts to proceed with regular order on the FY 2014 budget resolution. A transcript of the interview is below.

TAMRON HALL, MSNBC: The fight over sequestration comes as the debate is beginning to rage over how Congress will proceed with the federal budget. Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen says Republicans are standing in the way -- he joins me now. Thank you so much for you time.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Hi, Tamron.

HALL: In fact, you've gone to the next step and you'd like to see a legislative conference put together of Democrats and Republicans to at least try to move this ball forward, ahead, whatever you choose to explain it here -- but there is a stand still.

VAN HOLLEN: Sure, Tamron. Look, what Mr. Rogers said simply is not true. The FAA and the Department of Transportation have been warning Members of Congress for months that the sequester was going to have these disruptive impacts -- which is exactly why I and my colleagues on the Democratic side in the House have introduced legislation that would replace the sequester, achieve the same amount of deficit reduction, but without the disruption. And we haven't been given the benefit of an up or down vote on that.

We are now calling, as you said, for a conference for the budget. The House has passed a budget, the Senate has passed a budget -- you can't get a final budget out of a conference committee without going to this conference where people try to negotiate their differences. And that's what we need to do. And we're calling on Speaker Boehner to simply stop holding up that next step in the process, appoint conferees so we can get going with those conversations.

HALL: And what has been the response from the Speaker, if any?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, he said just the other day, he is not going to appoint conferees. And the irony is this, Tamron -- for months, we heard from our Republican colleagues that if we don't have a budget, Members of Congress shouldn't get paid.

That's fine. But right now, he is standing in the way of the next step in the budget process. In fact, Congress itself is now out of compliance with our own budget laws. We were supposed to have completed this conference committee by April 15th -- we're way beyond that now. But obviously we can't go to conference until the Speaker appoints Members to hash out differences.

So let's get on with it. We're seeing the impact of the disruption and economy at our airports. The Congressional Budget Office says it will have 750,000 fewer jobs at the end of the year if the sequester remains in place. We cannot afford those disruptive impacts on the economy.

HALL: Just quickly, though, I want your response it a quote from a former high ranking state transportation official, person unnamed but the quote was in Politico: "Everyone seems more interested in either "I told you so' or "you're putting travelers at risk for political benefit.' Right now, people are too happy to try to blame it on the other party. And I think that's going to run for a while." Your reaction to that quote, again, unnamed transportation official there.

VAN HOLLEN: Well Tamron, that's exactly why we should get on with the conference committee. The whole purpose of a conference committee is to try and iron out your differences; to try to negotiate a common budget solution. And we would like to do that in a transparent way, in the light of day -- the so-called regular order.

Our Republican colleagues have been calling for that for months and months and months. And now we don't really understand why they don't take the next step in the process. That is the next step to avoiding exactly what the caller said. That's the next step in trying to resolve our differences as opposed to, you know, trying to further divide.

HALL: Alright, Congressman Chris Van Hollen -- thank you very much.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

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