David Obey: “I simply want to observe, as I think the gentleman from Maryland indicated this morning, that last year when we had so…”

“I simply want to observe, as I think the gentleman from Maryland indicated this morning, that last year when we had so many appropriation bills not passed until the next session of Congress, the cry we frequently heard on the majority side of the aisle was that 'The Senate made me do it.' And they were all too eager to blame the Senate for the fact that most appropriation bills had gone nowhere. As the saying goes, this year they do not have Senator Daschle to kick around anymore with the Democrats being in the minority. And so I think it will be interesting to see whether or not the majority sooner or later can either end its debate with itself or else on several of these bills reach across the aisle and try to work out a more bipartisan solution. I know the gentleman from Florida has certainly tried, and I believe I have tried; but sometimes things are settled at a level above our pay grade. That is the way life is, and that is the way this institution is.”