David Obey: “I take the floor today not so much in anger as in bemusement. This rule is the most blatantly partisan manipulation of…”

“I take the floor today not so much in anger as in bemusement. This rule is the most blatantly partisan manipulation of the House rules that I have seen in my 29 years' service here. And I guess what I feel more than anything else is simply sorrow for those who feel that they have to engage in such manipulations in order to claim political victories. I think we ought to take a look at the history of the arts to understand what is being done here today and why. The history is that, for the last 2 years and really for a number of years before that, a large segment of the Republican Caucus in this House has had as its number one mission the elimination of all Federal funding for the arts. Last year no money was provided for funding for the arts in this bill by the majority party, and it took a clear veto threat from the President and a clear bipartisan resistance to their position by the Senate and an insistence by House Democrats that funding be restored before the conference committee on this bill last year did in fact restore the money. This year, the Republican majority gave zero dollars for the arts in the original bill that came before our committee. In committee, I offered the amendment to restore funding. It was adopted by a virtually unanimous Democratic vote with, I believe, 5 additional Republican friends supporting us to create a bipartisan majority for funding the arts.”