David Obey: “I want to express my gratification that we are, in fact, here with this legislation today. Frankly, it had many…”

“I want to express my gratification that we are, in fact, here with this legislation today. Frankly, it had many shortcomings. We fought out a lot of them on the floor earlier when the bill was first before us, and among the most serious shortcomings, in my view, would be what I consider to be still serious lack of funds for homeland security, but we fought that fight and lost. This bill is focused on other fights which I think are institutionally just as important for the Congress. This bill began when the administration asked for a series of blank checks totaling almost $70 billion. The bill that is here today does not provide the administration with those blank checks and, instead, reintroduces them to the concept of checks and balances, and I would like to explain how. The administration requested total flexibility and unaccountability for roughly $59.9 billion for the Pentagon's defense emergency response fund. This conference report reduces that fund to $15.7 billion and requires 5-day prior notification to the Congress before the Pentagon can obligate any of that money. That preserves to the Congress the right to review proposals for the spending of taxpayers' money.”