David Obey: “I know my good friend from Florida, the chairman of the committee, and I do not think that he is any happier to have to…”

“I know my good friend from Florida, the chairman of the committee, and I do not think that he is any happier to have to fight this war on terrorism, at least in terms of resources, with one hand tied behind his back, any more than I am. And I think it is fair at this point to state what the record has been in the past on this issue. After the tragic events of September 11, we were asked by the White House Budget Office to provide emergency funding of an unlimited nature for an unlimited number of years, a blank check. Both the chairman and I said no, we were not going to write a blank check to anybody; and we sat down and immediately worked out a compromise. Within 10 days, we had sent to the White House a bill that contained $40 billion in emergency resources to deal with those events. We then proceeded to, as he said, visit security agencies all over town. We spent almost 5 days gathering information from the security agencies: NSA, CIA, Centers for Disease Control, FBI. You name it, we talked to them about what their emergency needs were, and we tried to meet them. In the end, over the threat of a veto from the White House, we were able to put almost $4 billion in additional funds into the appropriation bill to fight terrorism.”