David Obey: “as I indicated earlier in the debate, 2 days ago, the Republican majority passed a budget resolution which imposed a…”

“as I indicated earlier in the debate, 2 days ago, the Republican majority passed a budget resolution which imposed a stringent ceiling on total appropriations for the year. The effect of that was to squeeze more than $1 billion of badly needed money out of this bill. What the committee has tried to do in response is that the administration in this bill asked for about 307 military construction projects, items like barracks and the like, and the committee essentially took 20 of them and designated those as ``emergency spending'' and that freed up $507 million so that the committee could insert a number of projects which represented their highest priorities. That meant that the bill was effectively, if you are going to look at it in terms of budget accounting, $507 million above the amount allowed by the budget ceiling. That didn't even take into account the fact that the committee is proceeding on the assumption that a good number of additional fees which the White House wants to impose on veterans might, in fact, go into effect. I don't believe they will. We don't deal with that issue in this amendment, but we do deal with the first issue. What we are simply suggesting is that we recognize that these projects requested by the White House are necessary, but we believe that they ought to be paid for.…”