Van Hollen Responds to Ryan's WSJ Op-Ed

Statement

Today Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, issued the following statement in response to Congressman Paul Ryan's op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal:

"We are pleased to learn that Congressional Republicans are finally interested in sitting down to negotiate on the budget. Democrats have been calling for budget talks since March -- but Speaker Boehner and Senate Republicans have blocked the appointment of budget negotiators four times in the House and 20 times in the Senate. Instead of negotiating, Congressional Republicans let the clock run to create the manufactured crisis of government shutdown and defaulting on our debts.

"Now, they want the President and Congressional Democrats to adopt the Republican budget and policy agenda in exchange for releasing those two hostages. If the President were to threaten to veto the full faith and credit of the United States unless Republicans adopted his budget and policy agenda, Republicans would be screaming abuse of power. Yet that is exactly what they are doing. House Republicans must put away the twin clubs of government shutdown and debt default, and come to the negotiating table on the budget. We continue to stand ready to do that, as we have tried to do all year.

"That budget negotiation will look for compromise between two very different visions of the future of our country. The Democratic budget focuses on immediately boosting job growth and taking a balanced approach to long-term deficit reduction. The Republican budget guts important investments, violates commitments to our seniors and others, and provides windfall tax breaks to the very wealthy and special interests. We welcome that debate and that negotiation."

Source