David Obey: “Yesterday, a number of Members on the Republican side of the aisle sought to belittle the legislation before us because…”

“Yesterday, a number of Members on the Republican side of the aisle sought to belittle the legislation before us because, in addition to funding the needs of the troops in Iraq, it contains money to address a number of domestic priorities. To ridicule that legislation, they tried to belittle items such as funding for levees in New Orleans, and agriculture disaster payments. In that they have been joined by editorial writers at papers such as the Washington Post. Like the Post, the Republican speakers of yesterday indicated that their main objection to this legislation is the way it tries to create pressure to end our military involvement in an Iraq civil war. Those speakers and the Washington Post editorial writers make no effort to understand why these additional items are there. They simply ridicule them for their own purposes. This bill has my name on it, and I take full responsibility for each and every item in the bill.”