David Obey: “I note the majority leader's reference to morality. It is really interesting indeed to be lectured on morality by the…”

“I note the majority leader's reference to morality. It is really interesting indeed to be lectured on morality by the majority leader, almost makes me laugh. But let me simply say one thing. We are here today with a bill brought by a fine Member of Congress, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who does his dead level best to provide a fair allocation of money within the amount assigned to his subcommittee. The problem is that because the majority party has already made its basic budget decisions, and it has made as its number one priority providing tax cuts including $140,000-a-year tax cuts for people making more than a million bucks, because of that, there is very little left on the table for any of the domestic programs. And so the majority is now bringing to the floor bills which are inadequate for education, inadequate for science, inadequate for health, inadequate for law enforcement. Now, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority leader, objects to the amendment that I intend to offer. Let me tell you how we got here. Last year, the gentleman was unhappy because the funding for NASA was scaled back by the VA HUD subcommittee in order to provide more room, in order to provide more money for housing, and to provide more money for veterans care. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) did not like that arrangement, so he abolished that subcommittee because the gentleman from Texas (Mr.…”