David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, the basic job of Congress is to pass the annual budget and appropriation bills in order to keep the…”

“Mr. Speaker, the basic job of Congress is to pass the annual budget and appropriation bills in order to keep the government running and to fund the most important functions of government. To do that under our processes, we are first supposed to pass a budget resolution which sets the outline for spending for the coming year, and then we are supposed to follow that on by passing 13 appropriation bills which fill in the blanks in detail. This continuing resolution is here because, on the domestic side of the budget, none of that has happened. We have passed only one of the 13 appropriation bills that were supposed to pass by the end of the fiscal year. That is for the Department of Defense. But even other national security bills have not been passed, and certainly, nothing has been passed that meets our obligations on the domestic side of the ledger. The majority party controls this body by a very narrow margin.”