David Obey: “this morning, I am not even going to talk about the fact that on this side of the aisle we feel that this bill is short…”

“this morning, I am not even going to talk about the fact that on this side of the aisle we feel that this bill is short by at least $1.8 billion in providing the kind of health and medical care that we think ought to be provided for our veterans. But I want to talk about two other problems in the bill. Because this bill, first of all, continues the fiction that somehow it is likely, or desirable, that $735 million in additional fees will be laid onto our retired military. I do not believe that that should happen, and I do not believe that will happen. And if it doesn't, then this bill has a $735 million hole that it is going to have to fill. Secondly, this bill has a very interesting budget gimmick that essentially allows this bill to come to the floor $500 million above the budget resolution that was adopted just 2 nights ago by the Republican majority. Here is what happened. The administration sent down in the military construction bill their request to move ahead with about 310 military infrastructure projects. What the committee did was to designate 20 of those projects, and there is nothing emergency about those projects, but they need to proceed. What the committee did was essentially to take 20 of those projects and simply label the expenditures for those projects as being emergency. Why did they do that? Because it then made room in the bill for the committee to add projects of their own totaling $507 million.…”