David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, this debate demonstrates just how dumb this bill is. We have the people who are offering the amendment…”

“Mr. Chairman, this debate demonstrates just how dumb this bill is. We have the people who are offering the amendment, justifiably pointing out that the Patent Office ought to be fully funded because that office is key to innovation, it is key to economic progress, it is key to jobs, it is key to modernizing our economy. But because the majority party has decided that it is more important to give the 400 richest Americans $200 billion in tax cuts over the next 10 years, and because the majority party has decided that in the minimum wage bill, for God's sake, that gives only $11 billion worth of benefits to workers, they are going to give $90 billion in tax relief to people who make $300,000 a year or more; because of those stupid decisions, what they are doing is forcing us to choose which half of the economy we are going to cripple. So we have to choose between crippling the Patent Office, because this bill steals money from the fees in order to fund other programs; so we have to choose between doing that or gutting our ability to understand what is happening in this economy by gutting the statistical capability of the United States Government to know what is really happening on unemployment, to know what is really happening on trade, to know what is really happening with respect to price changes.”