David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, what is happening on this floor tonight is blatant, obvious, raw politics. That is all it is. The…”

“Mr. Chairman, what is happening on this floor tonight is blatant, obvious, raw politics. That is all it is. The Republican majority leadership is bringing a bill to the floor which has over $10 billion in aid to various areas of the country. No offsets. No offsets at all. But when on this side of the aisle we are trying to deal with disaster problems for farmers on an equal footing with the hurricane disasters that we have just had in Florida and other States, then we are told, Oh, no. All of a sudden a new rule has to apply. I would say to the gentleman from Nebraska that is like saying that in an Oklahoma-Nebraska football game, Oklahoma has to go 200 yards for a touchdown while Nebraska only has to go 100 yards. It just is not fair. It is not square. I would make another point. Even if we were going to have offsets, this is a 'let's pretend' offset. This is a phony offset, because if we take a look at the scoring by the beloved Congressional Budget Office, which the majority party used to stick with, come hell or high water, if we take a look at this, there is no offset whatsoever in the first fiscal year, zero savings by this 'let's pretend' offset. In the second year there is a $56 million savings out of a $2.8 billion cost. Who are they kidding? This is a political maneuver. This is not a financial or budgetary offset. It is a joke. And if it did not do so much damage to farmers, I would laugh at it.”