David Obey: “I think that the speech we just heard indeed does illustrate rather dramatically the difference in priorities between…”

“I think that the speech we just heard indeed does illustrate rather dramatically the difference in priorities between most of us on this side of the aisle and many others on that side of the aisle. What is before us is this: we routinely see Members of both parties in this House talk about the need for shared sacrifice, and we routinely see Members of both political parties posing for political holy pictures because they both profess to be so concerned about the welfare of our soldiers who are fighting our wars on behalf of our national interest. But this rule walks away blatantly--it walks away from our obligation to those military families who are the backbone of our military efforts, whether in Iraq or other places around the world. Now, the bill as it was reported by the Committee on Appropriations at the request of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), who is the primary mover on this issue, included a provision which allowed the Military Housing Privatization Program to continue to operate. That is important, because 160,000 military families right now live in sub-standard housing, and the provision in this bill to raise the cap on that program would have helped 50,000 of those military families to wind up living in decent housing. This rule will allow a single Member of this House to knock out that provision. So here we are in the middle of a war. We talk about shared sacrifice, but in the end, how does that shared sacrifice really apply?”