David Obey: “this debate has nothing whatsoever to do with the District of Columbia. As was evidenced by the last speech on that side…”

“this debate has nothing whatsoever to do with the District of Columbia. As was evidenced by the last speech on that side of the aisle, what we have here is an attempt by a number of Members of the majority party to use the District of Columbia as a pawn for the purpose of reading from the playbook of their well-known pollster, Frank Luntz, who has given them a whole series of sound bites, so they can try to deliver messages on other issues around the country by using the District of Columbia as a political pawn in the process. That is what is going on. Read the Luntz playbook, and we have virtually seen a copy of the previous speech from that side of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, I want to show the Members something. We just passed the military construction bill, 17 pages, to spend $9.2 billion. The D.C. bill is so loaded down with legislative proscriptions that it takes 179 pages to spend one-tenth of the amount that was spent in the military construction bill. We passed a defense bill, spending $247 billion, 100 pages. This D.C. bill is 180 pages. We spent 300 times as much in the defense bill with one-half the language ordering somebody else around that we have in the D.C. bill. There is absolutely no reason for this Congress to endanger the safety of the President of the United States by taking away the security that we now have on Pennsylvania Avenue around the White House. Yet, this bill does it.”