David Obey: “By all means, cut the deficit. By all means, for the 105th time we say: ``We agree, cut duplicative programs and cut…”

“By all means, cut the deficit. By all means, for the 105th time we say: ``We agree, cut duplicative programs and cut waste.'' But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say to the American people, ``Oh, we are going to have sweeping change throughout this country,'' and then say, ``Oh, but, by the way, do not worry about it, folks; nobody will feel anything when we make these major cuts.'' The distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations says let us quit taking money from the taxpayers. The fact is that the education programs we have been describing have been our Nation's effort to give money back to those working taxpayers. Evidently our friends on the majority side do not want to do that, at least not as much as we used to. Instead, they want to give billions of dollars back to the truly needy corporations of this world, everybody from AT&T, Texaco, International Minerals, Xerox, Union Camp, Panhandle, Grace, you name it. They want to give them back billions of dollars, because they want to eliminate the corporate minimum tax. Even though companies make billions of dollars in profits, they do not pay zip in taxes. So you put corporations ahead of students and working families. I do not think that makes much sense.”