Van Hollen wants to keep ranking member position on budget panel

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is asking his Democratic colleagues to support him for another term as ranking member on the House Budget Committee. 

“It has been a privilege to serve as Ranking Member of the Budget Committee during the current Congress, and I ask for your continued support for the upcoming 114th Congress,” he wrote in a letter to his fellow Democrats Monday. 

Van Hollen was first elected as the panel’s top Democrat at the end of 2010 for the 112th Congress.

{mosads}His spokeswoman, Bridgett Frey, said she is unaware of any other Democrats wanting to challenge Van Hollen.

Van Hollen said previous House Republican budgets, offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), would have provided “additional tax breaks for millionaires” and would have protected “powerful special interests.”

With Republicans in control of the next Congress, Van Hollen said lawmakers must advance a budget plan “to accelerate job growth and build more broadly shared prosperity.” 

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) is expected to become the House Budget Committee’s chairman, succeeding Ryan, who is expected to win the House Ways and Means Committee gavel. 

Lawmakers will have a better chance of avoiding another series of automatic spending cuts if they pass another budget deal next year that raises the caps for at least fiscal 2016. The cuts could return if congressional appropriators allocate more money than the caps allow.