David Obey: “Let me simply say the reason these amendments are in the self-executing rule is that we agree with you that under the…”

“Let me simply say the reason these amendments are in the self-executing rule is that we agree with you that under the circumstances they should not be in the bill. As I warned the House when we first started bringing appropriation bills to the floor, our committee did not have enough time to adequately get all of these amendments that were coming at us, and so we asked for a process which would allow us during the month of August to review all of them. In the end the House decided they did not want to do that. One of the major reasons is because Members of your party wanted to make certain that we had an opportunity to deal with them on the floor now. I warned at the time that meant that mistakes would be made. They were. When we caught the mistake, I went to the Rules Committee and Mr. Mollohan agreed that under the circumstances they ought to come out. We ought to be congratulated for it, rather than being questioned about it.”