David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, this really is a very good day for this institution, and in my view it marks the end of a very dark period.…”

“Mr. Speaker, this really is a very good day for this institution, and in my view it marks the end of a very dark period. The House does not run the Government. We do not execute the laws or administer the programs of this Government, but we do play a central role in funding the activities and responsibilities of the Federal Government. That in fact is the core of the responsibility given to this institution by the Constitution. I would say over the past year this House has failed to meet that responsibility to a degree that has no precedence in the history of the Republic. For more than 7 months, this House held most of the departments and agencies of this Government in a state of suspended animation. On two separate occasions it sent Federal workers--who by and large wanted to show up and do their jobs--it sent them home for what amounted to 27 days of forced vacations paid for at taxpayers expense. This Congress drove numerous hard-working small businessmen to near the brink of bankruptcy because they had the misfortune of having significant contracts with the Federal Government that were screwed up by the mismanagement of this place. As a result, there have been significantly increased costs to the taxpayer for purchasing services from those vendors in the future.”