Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the deficit-reduction supercommittee, pledged that all aspects of the budget would be on the table during committee discussions, including entitlement programs.
"We can't limit ourselves to any one part of the budget. We will look at everything from the spending side to the revenue side," Van Hollen said on Bloomberg TV's "In The Loop with Betty Liu" Wednesday.
The supercommittee will hold its first official organizational meeting Thursday morning.
Van Hollen said he hopes the group of lawmakers will be "ambitious" both in boosting economic growth and tacking longer-term deficit reduction.
"I hope we will be ambitious on both fronts. I hope we will do whatever we can to support the president's efforts and other congressional ideas to get the economy moving again, but also come up with an ambitious 10-year deficit reduction plan," Van Hollen said.
The congressman cited farm subsidies and the corporate tax code, including oil-and-gas provisions, as some of the policies he thinks can be adjusted to help reduce the deficit.
