Van Hollen Talks About Unemployment Benefits, Minimum Wage on MSNBC

Interview

Today Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, appeared on MSNBC with Thomas Roberts to talk about unemployment benefits and the minimum wage.

ROBERTS: I'm joined now by Congressman Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Sir, it's great to see you. And as we start out with the words of Senator Harry Reid, calling the House a black hole of legislation. First, he's got the uphill climb of getting it passed over on the Senate side, but do you think that there's the appetite in the House to get this done?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, happy New Year, Thomas, and I hope 2014 will be a better year in Congress than 2013, which was certainly, in the House of Representatives, a black hole. Look, if the Senate can get this passed in the Senate, and Harry Reid has made this priority number one, that will create some momentum in the House. And Speaker Boehner, I think, will be under more pressure to do something.

However, Sandy Levin, Congressman Levin and I tried before we took a break to get the House to vote on an amendment that would have extended unemployment compensation and paid for, frankly, by reducing agriculture subsidies overpayments. And the Speaker refused to allow a vote at that time. So, our hope is that a push from the Senate will get things moving in the House, but the jury is still out.

ROBERTS: All right, so there is some gimme room to work out potential for the extended benefits there. But another item on the Congressional agenda is the proposition of minimum wage and raising it in this country. We have this new study from the University of Massachusetts finding that if passed, the Democrats' proposal would lift 4.6 million out of poverty.

Is there a real potential to get our current minimum wage, which across the board is at $7.25, higher and closer to that $10 mark?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, Thomas, I think if the Speaker of the House will make his new year's resolution allowing democracy to work its will in the House, then we can get things like a minimum wage increase passed. Because I'm confident that we have a majority of votes in the House to do it. We have virtually every Democrat, if not every Democrat, and I'm confident we would be able to pick up enough Republicans in the House to get to the 218 majority.

But the problem in 2013 was that the Speaker refused to allow democracy to work its will until the bipartisan agreement in December. So if that's a sign of things to come, that the Speaker will allow the House to actually have votes on these issues, then we can move forward on things like the minimum wage. If he's going to revert to form, for example, that caused the government shutdown, then we're in trouble.

So, I think the question is, again, what's the Speaker's New Year's resolution? Will he allow democracy to work its will in the House? If he does, we can make progress on some important issues.

ROBERTS: All right, well, we all hope you come back refreshed and ready, because the sixth is coming quickly. Happy New Year, sir. Thanks for joining me. Congressman Chris Van Hollen.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

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