Tom Harkin: “over a month has passed since the Republican and Democratic negotiators came to agreement on the health and education…”

“over a month has passed since the Republican and Democratic negotiators came to agreement on the health and education appropriations bill for this year. As I said back then, the agreement was reached as a product of long and difficult bipartisan negotiations. Senator Stevens, Senator Byrd, Senator Specter, and I, along with Congressmen Bill Young, Congressman David Obey, and Congressman John Porter, worked for months to craft this agreement. Chairman Stevens and Chairman Young had been charged by their leadership to lead these negotiations to closure so that we could pass this very important bill. That is exactly what they did. At times when negotiations got heated, both sides hung in there, and in the end we came up with a compromise. Neither side liked everything that was in it, but it was a true compromise. Less than 12 hours after we reached agreement, the faction within the House leadership led by Congressman DeLay and Congressman Armey decided to renege on our bipartisan conference. We were baffled by this sudden decision. We spent many late hours giving and taking, compromising, and negotiating. We came to an honorable, mutually satisfactory agreement. As I said, no one was 100-percent happy with it.”