David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, to recapitulate, there are a number of appropriation bills which still have not passed, but a number of…”

“Mr. Speaker, to recapitulate, there are a number of appropriation bills which still have not passed, but a number of them primarily because they just got caught up in accidents that started out to happen to somebody else, and we can fix those in about 5 minutes. No problem with those. There are only two real problems left. One is to find some reasonable language compromise on the immigration question, which the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) points out correctly, is not an appropriations issue. The second is to deal with the Labor, Health and Education appropriation conference report. I would remind Members that, when that bill came back from conference, there were objections raised on both sides of the aisle to one language provision in that bill, namely, the language provision that related to ergonomics. I was highly unsatisfied with the results, from my perspective. A number of Members on that side of the aisle were highly unsatisfied with the results from their perspective. But with that exception, I do not recall a single stated objection to any of the dollar agreements in the bill. I do not recall any arguments about any of the appropriation decisions on funding levels. To me, education ought to be the top priority of both parties.”