David Obey: “I yield myself 11 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio is my friend. I have a great deal of respect for him…”

“I yield myself 11 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio is my friend. I have a great deal of respect for him, and I know he tries to do the best job with the tools he is given. The problem is that he has been given a totally inadequate set of tools. ``This is the budget that you get when you elect a Republican White House, a Republican House of Representatives, and a Republican Senate.'' I did not say that. The former majority leader of the Republican caucus said that, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). This is the day when the price of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy becomes quite clear, on this bill and on the bill that will follow, the reconciliation bill. This is the day when this Congress chooses to walk away from its investments: obligations in education, health care, job training and the like. This is the bill which shortchanges the Social Gospel. This is the day that we pass legislation that chooses to make the lives of the most privileged among us quite a bit more pleasant because of their tax cuts while at the same time we are making the lives of the poor just a little bit more desperate. This is a growing country. It has growing problems. It has growing opportunities. If this bill does not grow with it, then we lose ground; and we are certainly losing ground under this bill today. This is the bill for education, health, social services, worker protection programs.…”