Van Hollen

The article in today's Sun by Rep. Chris Van Hollen ("Medicaid cuts would hurt us all," July 25) demonstrates how difficult it will be to reduce our budget deficit. While giving lip service to the need to reduce our federal budget deficit, he then maintains that there should be no reduction in the federal Medicaid program. Not one dime. Conspicuously absent in his article are any proposals to bring our deficit down. There is a reason for this. He has none. He was perfectly willing to pass budgets containing huge deficits when he and his party were in the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he will continue to do so if given the opportunity.

Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Chris Van Hollen are planning to take service members past and present to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address Tuesday evening. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, and Van Hollen, a Montgomery County Democrat, are among some two dozen lawmakers participating in the bipartisan effort organized by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the House National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus to help focus attention on veterans' needs.

Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Chris Van Hollen are planning to take service members past and present to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address Tuesday evening. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, and Van Hollen, a Montgomery County Democrat, are among some two dozen lawmakers participating in the bipartisan effort organized by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the House National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus to help focus attention on veterans' needs.

Maryland's congressional delegation will have unusual influence in helping to resolve big issues left hanging on Capitol Hill, because two of the state's lawmakers were appointed Friday to help sort out differences between House and Senate legislation. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, were appointed to the conference committee that is charged with finding a compromise on a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, along with a continuation of the current rate that Medicare pays to doctors.

Maryland's congressional delegation will have unusual influence in helping to resolve big issues left hanging on Capitol Hill, because two of the state's lawmakers were appointed Friday to help sort out differences between House and Senate legislation. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, were appointed to the conference committee that is charged with finding a compromise on a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, along with a continuation of the current rate that Medicare pays to doctors.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen feels history peering over his shoulder. Tapped by Rep. Nancy Pelosi after she ascended to the House speaker's office to succeed Rep. Rahm Emanuel as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2007-2008 election cycle, the third-term congressman from Maryland's 8th District is tasked with protecting - or better, expanding - the speaker's thin majority in the House of Representatives. Ms. Pelosi's majority and speakership were won on the strength of 30 seats Democrats flipped in 2006.

WHAT IS Chris Van Hollen so shy about? The Montgomery County congressman and possible candidate for Paul Sarbanes' Senate seat just got a well-deserved nod from the Cato Institute for his support of free trade. But he doesn't want to talk about it. I tried three times recently to interview him about his status as one of only seven of the think tank's "most consistent free traders" in the House - and one of only two Democrats. "He is interested in the issue," spokeswoman Marilyn Campbell said.

Washington -Rep. Chris Van Hollen figured his mission was complete after Democrats bulked up their majority in Congress last fall. Letting someone else lead the House campaign committee would free him to advance on the leadership ladder. And he'd avoid blame if the party lost ground in the next election. It's been more than a century since a party added seats in the situation Democrats find themselves in now. "We have our work cut out for us," says the Maryland congressman in an interview.

WASHINGTON - Rep. Chris Van Hollen's campaign has raised $300,000 since he began exploring a run for the Senate next year, according to the congressman. Van Hollen raised a total of $338,000 in the first quarter of this year and has a total of $713,000 in his campaign account. Another Democrat considering the race, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, raised $60,000 during the same period and has $215,000 total. Kweisi Mfume, the former congressman and head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who has declared his candidacy, transferred $103,000 from his old campaign account into his new Senate fund.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen has raised a pile of campaign cash, hired a high-profile consultant, taken polls and made a string of appearances across Maryland. What he has not done - three months after Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes announced he would retire in 2006 - is declare himself a candidate for the Senate. Van Hollen, a Democrat from Montgomery County, says he will make a decision by early next month. Until then, despite all the outward trappings of a campaign for higher office, he's sticking to the same lines he has uttered since March: He is seriously considering it and has been getting encouragement from the people he's talked to all over the state.

For Rep. Chris Van Hollen, brokering a bipartisan deal to trim the federal deficit is about more than dodging draconian across-the-board cuts or protecting a fragile economic recovery. It's also about proving that a bitterly divided Congress can still get something done. As a member of the congressional "supercommittee" charged with slashing U.S. budget deficits by $1.2 trillion, the Montgomery County Democrat is again at the center of the most pressing question facing Washington: how to balance spending cuts, taxes and the increasingly partisan politics of Capitol Hill.

Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday night that two Maryland congressmen - one Democrat, one Republican - have asked him to make "substantial" changes in the state's proposed new political map. O'Malley spoke after back-to-back meetings in the State House with Rep. Christopher Van Hollen, a Montgomery County Democrat, and Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican. "Both of them had alternative suggestions," O'Malley said. "Both of them want to retain as many of their traditional citizens and neighborhoods as possible.

If Maryland is to raise significant new revenue to meet its backlog of transportation needs - most likely through a higher gas tax - 2012 is the year it must be done, a leading lawmaker told a gathering of Baltimore business leaders Monday. Speaking at the Greater Baltimore Committee's annual transportation summit, state Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola warned that any political will to raise money for highways, transit and other transportation needs will dwindle as legislators approach the 2014 state elections.

Thank you to Congressman Chris Van Hollen for his recent article on the devastating impact of federal cuts to the Medicaid program. ("Medicaid Cuts would hurts us all," July 25.) Maryland's Medicaid program supports seniors in nursing homes, the disabled, as well as pregnant women and children below or near the poverty level. Investments in pregnant women and young children are prevention at its finest and the kind of cost effective health care expenditures that bear the most promise in reducing our country's high health care expenditures, while providing health care for our most vulnerable citizens.

Contrary to Robert Erlandson's letter ( "Van Hollen shows why it will be so hard to reduce the deficit," July 26), Rep. Chris Van Hollen's op-ed ("Medicaid cuts would hurt us all," July 25) correctly pointed out the consequences of cutting Medicaid. As Rep. Van Hollen wrote, whenever uninsured people go to the hospital and get care they cannot afford, we all pay for that with increase premiums that are used to cover uncompensated hospital costs. According to Families USA, about $1,000 of each of our health insurance premiums go every year to cover the health care costs of the uninsured.

The article in today's Sun by Rep. Chris Van Hollen ("Medicaid cuts would hurt us all," July 25) demonstrates how difficult it will be to reduce our budget deficit. While giving lip service to the need to reduce our federal budget deficit, he then maintains that there should be no reduction in the federal Medicaid program. Not one dime. Conspicuously absent in his article are any proposals to bring our deficit down. There is a reason for this. He has none. He was perfectly willing to pass budgets containing huge deficits when he and his party were in the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he will continue to do so if given the opportunity.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland will lead the national push by House Democrats to preserve their new majority in 2008, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday. Pelosi has chosen the Montgomery County Democrat to succeed Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the hard-charging strategist who led House Democrats back to the majority last month for the first time in 12 years, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The move puts Van Hollen in charge of the party's recruiting and fundraising efforts during the 2007-2008 election cycle.

For most of the past decade, well-known Montgomery County Democrats have been ducking a race with Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella and leaving their party's nomination to second-stringers. No more. State Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr., one of the Democrats' rising stars in Annapolis, announced yesterday that he is jumping into the race to seize the 8th District congressional seat held by Morella since 1987. The two-term senator's move sets up a likely primary battle next fall with another young Democrat from Montgomery, state Del. Mark K. Shriver, who announced his candidacy last month.

Congress is engaged in an ongoing debate on proposals to reduce the deficit. There is no question we need get our fiscal house in order and put our nation on the path to long-term fiscal stability - the question is how. First, we must ensure that we do no harm to our still fragile economy - anything that would put American jobs at risk is unacceptable. Second, we must find a balanced approach that does not put undue burdens on our seniors and most vulnerable or slash critical investments in education, infrastructure and innovation.

For six straight hours on July 19, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen forcefully led the Democratic floor debate against passage of House Resolution 2560 - the "Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. " His biggest problem with the legislation was its requirement for a seemingly onerous balanced budget amendment. Mr. Van Hollen claimed he wasn't against "garden variety" balanced budget amendments - just this one, because it required limiting annual government spending to an insufficient 18 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.