David Obey: “I wonder if somebody could call the Attending Physician's office. I'm getting a bad case of whiplash here just listening…”

“I wonder if somebody could call the Attending Physician's office. I'm getting a bad case of whiplash here just listening to these arguments that run in opposite directions. I just heard the gentleman say a minute ago, and I must say, I'm sympathetic to his problem, but I just heard him say a minute ago that he's frustrated. Well, I'm frustrated too because, what I'd like to point out, as the President of the United States pointed out just a few weeks ago, is that the gentleman's knocking on the wrong door. And with all due respect, when Mr. Lewis was chairman of the Appropriations Committee last year, it wasn't his job to reauthorize this program. And as chairman of the committee this year, it isn't my job to reauthorize this program. You need to go to the authorizing committee. We have gotten dozens of lectures through the last month from Members on your side of the aisle who fuss and fume about individual earmarks that they say are not 'authorized.' Well, this is a case where we on the committee are saying the following: you came to us last year. You said you couldn't get the authorizing committee off its duff, and so you wanted some help to sustain this program until you could get them to reauthorize it.”