David Obey: “I cannot ask people to vote against their bill because it does some things which any piece of legislation would do which…”

“I cannot ask people to vote against their bill because it does some things which any piece of legislation would do which came to the floor at this point. It does provide needed funds for Medicare. It does provide funding for a number of programs which, if we did not pass the bill, would be limited to last year's level; and that would cripple a good number of programs, including education. But before Members decide how they want to vote, I think they need to understand that this legislation is a god-awful mess brought to the floor by a god-awful process. About $360 billion, or 90 percent, of the $400 billion in spending contained in this bill, never came before the House of Representatives until it arrived in this one huge take-it-or-leave-it package today. That means 90 percent of the domestic budget involving hundreds of individual programs was never subjected to debate or amendment in the United States House of Representatives. What you have here, as I said earlier, is the biggest back-room deal in terms of spending in the Nation's history. And when you have a back-room deal which is not ever aired in public, that means a lot of people are going to get hurt, and a lot of people are going to get things that they should not get.”