David Obey: “I would like to not talk so much about the past but about the present and the future. The situation, as this chart…”

“I would like to not talk so much about the past but about the present and the future. The situation, as this chart shows, is that, if we take a look at what has happened to each of the 13 appropriation bills that we are supposed to be passing this fiscal year, so far 7 of them, those in red that reach this line here, 7 of them by the end of the day will have passed the House. Only one will have passed the Senate. There are three more which are moving their way through the Committee on Appropriations, and there are three which have not yet begun the move through the Committee on Appropriations. So that means that 7 out of the 13 will be passed through the House by the end of the day. That is absolutely not the fault of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] or the leadership of the Committee on Appropriations. But I do think we need to look at what the problems are so that we can try to deal with them. The problem, the main problem is that, first of all, the budget resolution was 2 months late. Because of that, the Committee on Appropriations has been forced to do in approximately 3 weeks time what ordinarily would take about 10 weeks to accomplish. That is in my view the price that was paid for the extremism that was reflected in the general budget resolution. Even the Republican majority in the Senate could not take the extremism represented by the House-passed budget resolution, and they demanded substantial changes. It took a long time to get them.”