David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, again, there is nothing new with what we are doing here today. We have in the past had Congresses that have…”

“Mr. Speaker, again, there is nothing new with what we are doing here today. We have in the past had Congresses that have failed to get their appropriations work done on time and so they have required continuing resolutions; that is not the issue. The issue is why we are here on this occasion still in this same crunch, and when you answer that question, you see why this session is different from so many others in the history of the Congress. It is different, because in past years when the Congress failed to get its appropriations work done on time, it was usually because there were honest fights which were occurring over funding levels for programs all the way through, and you had honest fights between honest pieces of legislation. And it was clear what each side in those controversies were trying to do. This year has been different. This year we have seen bill after bill after bill come to the floor initially and each time those bills came to the floor, we were told by the majority leadership, well, we know the bill does not make sense at this point, but this is only the first inning, we will fix it up along the way. Basically, the reason that we are stuck here today and the problem we face today does not have so much to do with what people are now doing or not doing to bring this session to a close, what we are really faced with is the consequences of what was not done in the first 10 months of this session.”