David Obey: “It is sometimes amazing to me just how small some congressional debates can be. We have heard a lot of bloviating on…”

“It is sometimes amazing to me just how small some congressional debates can be. We have heard a lot of bloviating on this floor today about whether something is a cut and whether it isn't a cut. We have had a boy scout debate about dictionary terms. But the real question to ask about this bill is simply to ask, is it adequate to the needs of the country? Do we really need to simply continue the status quo by going back to last year's level, or do we need to recognize that there is more than one deficit in the country? Do we really think that we can afford to continue to avoid dealing with the deficit in educational quality, the deficit in health care access, the deficit in worker training? Do we really think that we can avoid, or that we can afford to avoid investing to increase the number of quality teachers in this country? Do we think that we need to do more or not to help millions of kids who need a better deal in special education? Do we need to do more than we are doing now to help workers who lose their life's work because of the forces of globalization? Are we comfortable continuing to see the number of research grants for cancer, for heart disease, for Parkinson's disease, continue to decline, or do we think that we ought to make an investment, a collective societal investment, so that we can do more to attack those diseases? Those are values questions. That is what we have to decide here today. This amendment is largely symbolic.”