David Obey: “You got the offer. We are waiting for your response. We were told that we would get it on Monday. And I am relying on…”

“You got the offer. We are waiting for your response. We were told that we would get it on Monday. And I am relying on Senator Stevens, he is a man of good faith, and I am relying on you to be ready Monday to deal with it. But I have been here for a month. The Speaker has gone to his district; he has gone all over the country campaigning for people. The majority leader has. The majority whip has. I have been stuck here like a fugitive on a chain gang waiting for somebody in the leadership on your side of the aisle with the power to negotiate to actually engage in negotiations. And, as you know, all we get is no, no, no. We have moved 20 percent off our position. But we are not going to leave here, as the distinguished minority whip says, until we get a Labor-HHS bill that provides an additional ability to reduce class size, to train more teachers in a better fashion, to provide for after-school centers, to provide for the same level of Pell Grant funding that you yourself said you wanted in May, and to provide additional funding for the disabled. That is what we are asking for, along with the school construction. And we moved 20 percent from our position today. The only answer we got from your side is no movement. And so there is no point in meeting with the same four people all around because we get no new results. So what we are hoping is that we will get different results by moving it to a different level, and that is what we have been told would take place on Monday.”