David Obey: “my only response to some of the comments I have heard from the other side of the aisle is, you are really something…”

“my only response to some of the comments I have heard from the other side of the aisle is, you are really something else. You are really something else. You spent all of the last year trying to pass appropriation bills. You passed all but one through the House. You could not get your Republican friends in the Senate to support any of them. So when you relinquished your duties we had no domestic budget for the coming year. I offered on the floor to make any substantive compromises necessary when you were still in control. I offered to make any procedural concessions necessary to enable you to pass the bills on your watch. You did not do it. Your own chairman at the time admitted that the Republican floor leader in the Senate blocked the bills from passage. So you have forfeited any right to squawk about how we cleaned up your mess. Now I want to comment on a few claims that have been made. You say there has been no participation by the minority side. This bill was negotiated at the staff level for 3½ weeks, 7 days a week, around the clock. Your staff was invited to every meeting. Some of them they did not come because they did not like the choices that were being made. But someone had to make the decisions, because you did not.”