David Obey: “This bill falls far short of the administration's request in meeting basic community needs for courthouses and the rest.…”

“This bill falls far short of the administration's request in meeting basic community needs for courthouses and the rest. I also am concerned, as the committee knows, with the nongermane provision which was added to this bill in committee with respect to retirement. That is water over the dam, and I am not going to milk that one any longer. But I would like to raise the same issue I raised in full committee. We have seen a tremendous drive to privatize virtually everything in this society in the last 20 years, and in some places that is appropriate. But I would like to describe what I see happening in a number of middle-sized towns all over this country where we have a lot of Federal offices that have become fragmented. In my hometown, for instance, we have a wide variety of Federal offices. We have military recruitment offices. We have Labor Department offices, wage-and-hour division. We have Social Security. We have the Justice Department. You name it.…”