Hoyer Discusses the GOP Shutdown and President Trump's Tax Proposal on CNBC's "Squawk Box"

WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined CNBC's Squawk Box this morning to discuss ongoing budget negotiations and President Trump's tax proposal. Below are excerpts from the interview and a link to the video:

Click here to watch the video.

“Nobody believes that the Democrats want to shut down the government, period. That's irrational. We want to see the government operating. I represent 62,000 federal employees, they're always put at angst when we get down to these deadlines. The fact of the matter is, I talked to Mr. McCarthy yesterday, we want to see a bill passed that will have full agreement.  We agree on probably 80%. Now you would think the rational person would say, 'ok we agree on 80%, we'll put the 20% aside, the bill will include the 80% on which we agree, and we'll pass it and we’ll fund the government and then we'll argue on that on which we do not agree.' That's the reasonable thing to do and hopefully we'll do that and we’ll do it in the next 48 hours.” 

“I think reasonable and responsible people can get their heads together [on tax reform]. The issue is are we going to have reasonable and responsible interface with the Administration? That certainly hasn’t happened yet to date. That certainly hasn’t happened on health care, hasn’t happened on jobs, hasn’t happened on ‘draining the swamp’ so we'll see. The answer to your question is yes it can happen. The last time it happened was 1986, and it happened largely because Rostenkowski, O'Neill, Reagan and Packwood sat down in agreement."