David Obey: “this bill is a debate or part of the debate about our national priorities and our national values and it helps decide…”

“this bill is a debate or part of the debate about our national priorities and our national values and it helps decide who we are going to put first in this society. This Congress has committed itself to pass a large number of very large tax cuts, and most of those tax cuts are aimed at the most well-off people in our society. The wealthiest 2 percent will get a huge percentage of those tax cuts. And our ability to afford those tax cuts is based on the assumption by the majority that over the next few years we will cut $125 billion below current services, below existing purchasing power levels, a whole host of programs: education programs, health programs, housing programs, land acquisition programs, science programs, all the rest. That is really what this debate is all about. Because this is one of the appropriation bills that is cut by a large amount below the President's budget in order to pretend that we can squeeze out enough room for those huge tax cuts aimed at the most well-off people in this society. And I do not believe we ought to do that. I think we need to look at this budget in terms of what we need 10 years from now because this is a growing society, it is a growing population. We have growing needs, we are going to have more people who need housing, we are going to have more people in high schools, we are going to have more people in college, we are going to have more needs, and these bills are not responding to them.”