David Obey: “we have just heard a canard. The charge has been made by the Republicans for the last 3 days that there are $19 billion…”

“we have just heard a canard. The charge has been made by the Republicans for the last 3 days that there are $19 billion in unspent homeland security funds. Let me tell you how they get to that ridiculous statement. They count all of the money that is proposed for that program for the next fiscal year. We have not even passed that bill out of the Congress yet. That is 34 percent of that so-called $19 billion in unspent money. This supplemental contains another 10 percent. You cannot spend money in localities the Congress has not yet appropriated. That accounts for another 10 percent. Then the omnibus appropriations bill that was passed in February of this year, that accounts for the other 30 percent of that so-called $19 billion in unspent money. Only 2 weeks ago, the agency made available to States the ability to apply for that money. The application period has not even been closed. That leaves 26 percent left; and of that 26 percent left, only 4 percent has been unobligated. So let us keep the facts straight.”