David Obey: “let me simply say that I will be supporting this bill, and I appreciate the approach taken by the subcommittee chairman…”

“let me simply say that I will be supporting this bill, and I appreciate the approach taken by the subcommittee chairman in putting the bill together. He has, I think, been most fair and balanced in dealing with all of the pressures that were on him, and he has certainly been fair with us. Let me say, however, having said that, that I think the allocation provided to this subcommittee was totally inadequate. And as the House by now has come to understand, I have had a series of amendments trying to limit the size of the tax cut which will be going to people who make more than $1 million a year in order to free up some additional investments in programs such as education, health care and the like. We tried to do the same thing on this bill, but again, the Committee on Rules refused to make that amendment in order. And so we will not be able to offer and have considered by the House the amendment that would have used a tiny portion of those revenue resources to folks who make over $1 million a year in order to fund a number of law enforcement activities that we thought were very important. I do want to mention one provision which is in this bill, which was adopted on a bipartisan basis in the committee, which I am very pleased about.”