David Obey: “let us talk about who is being partisan. The fact is that when there was a vote in the committee to take this money out…”

“let us talk about who is being partisan. The fact is that when there was a vote in the committee to take this money out, 16 Republicans correctly voted against it, a majority. We are simply asking that we stick to that position on this vote. Secondly, I would point out, if you want to attack the administration, if you look at their budget on page 253, you will see that in addition to the $1.2 billion which the administration asked for on an agency-by-agency basis to deal with this problem, the administration also has $3.25 billion set aside for contingencies, a major piece of which was supposed to be to deal with additional computer problems. I would point out that also the subcommittee, the leadership of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) cut $400 million from the specific agencies in his bill because he was going to be providing the $2.5 billion in another way. Now you are going to have both of those numbers gone. That leaves this country naked in dealing with this problem.”