David Obey: “7 months late and two Government shutdowns later, this Congress finally got together and passed a bipartisan continuing…”

“7 months late and two Government shutdowns later, this Congress finally got together and passed a bipartisan continuing resolution or a bipartisan series of appropriation bills just a few weeks ago. Now the Committee on Appropriations last Thursday agreed to an allocation of resources which is going to walk away from that agreement and take us right back to some of the same old arguments we had all of last year. We should not do that. This vote tonight is a test. Some of our friends on the Republican side of the aisle have made it quite clear through the last year and a half they want to eliminate the Department of Education, they want to make deep cuts in education, they want to make deep cuts in our ability to protect the environment, they want to savage job training, but then we had another set of our Republican friends who said, oh, no, we are not like that. We are moderates. We want to protect education, we want to protect job training, we want to protect health and protect our seniors. Tonight is the night they can do it, Mr. Speaker.”