C. W. Bill Young: “Mr. Speaker, again I appreciate the opportunity to work with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), as we bring…”

“Mr. Speaker, again I appreciate the opportunity to work with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), as we bring closure to these final seven appropriations bills which the House had already passed once, as I have said before. There are several important issues: one, as the majority leader said, is we are within the budget. There are a lot of good increases that we have called attention to, in health care, in education, in veterans care, in embassy security, in counterterrorism activities and all. But we offset those increases with rescissions, so that we were able to stay within the budget. This is a must-pass bill. Appropriations bills have to pass. They are about the only bills here that have to pass. That is why sometimes they attract some riders that actually cause us more problems in negotiations than the appropriations bills themselves. But it is a give-and-take. Republicans and Democrats in the House, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, leadership of both parties, the administration, the President, we brought all of those divergent groups together and we came up with a package, and that is what is before us today. For those who are concerned that we did not spend enough money, we did; but we offset. We could have spent more, because we had requests from Members for over $50 billion worth of Member-adds.”