David Obey: “let me conclude on this side by making four simple points. First of all, one of the previous speakers tried to suggest…”

“let me conclude on this side by making four simple points. First of all, one of the previous speakers tried to suggest that, in fact, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) had not been fired by the majority party caucus because he had been too willing to speak his own mind about the needs that he saw for veterans' health care. I would simply say that I am perfectly happy to believe that if the House is ready to believe that my grandmother is an astronaut and that the Cubs are going to win the pennant this year. The fact is that we know what the facts are, or were, I should say, with respect to the removal of the gentleman from New Jersey from office. He simply did not follow the party line and paid a price. So did the veterans. And now this bill is trying to help meet those costs. Secondly, the gentleman from New York indicated that there had been a variety of estimates about what would be needed for veterans health care funding this year. The fact is that the Democratic estimates that we offered were consistent, and the bipartisan estimates that were offered by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) were consistently that we needed $2.5 billion in this account over the budget request. The House earlier enacted a $1 billion increase.…”