David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, I think it is critical that we restore funding for much needed VA outpatient clinics so that I will vote…”

“Mr. Chairman, I think it is critical that we restore funding for much needed VA outpatient clinics so that I will vote for this outrageous amendment. But I find it unconscionable that this amendment offsets this restored funding by making further cuts to the already hard-hit national service program. It is appalling that this amendment forces us to choose between serving our veterans and providing college education for our children and needed services to our communities and a program, national service, that is working all over this United States. This is nothing more than a pointed and a personal attack on the President of the United States, and I want to say to the American public that the pawns in this game are the 20,000 young people who will be sent home in the middle of their year of service. The offset in my amendment would have made a cut of just 1.4 percent in the NASA budget rather than this 72 percent cut in the national service budget. But thanks to the Republican gag rule, I could not offer my amendment on the floor of this House, the people's House, so that we have been gagged at every step of the way, and that is wrong. Let me tell my Republican colleagues that the veterans are not likely to forget that you cut $206 million from their projects, and neither will the young people of this country or their parents forget what you have done to their children today.”