David Obey: “I simply want to say there are two things wrong in general with the budget under which the Congress is now proceeding.…”

“I simply want to say there are two things wrong in general with the budget under which the Congress is now proceeding. One of them is a lot of the items that wind up being cut, and the other thing wrong with the budget is a lot of items that are not cut. Some of those items are in this bill. In my view, for instance, it is simply not a rational division of priorities for us to decide that we are going to see reductions in programs that support senior citizens living near the edge of poverty, to see reductions in education that are crucial to improving people's lot in life, to see reductions in job training programs and economic development programs, and yet seeing this bill commit to spend some $70 billion for the F-22, a plane which we do not need at this time, to see the recommendation made in the bill to exceed the number of B-2's that have been requested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a cost of well over $1 billion a plane. Just one of those would pay the entire tuition bill for every single student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison for the next 12 years, just one of those planes, to put that in context. It seems to me that is a wasteful expenditure we should not be providing.”