David Obey: “ever since Labor Day this Congress and the President have been focused almost exclusively on Iraq, and there is…”

“ever since Labor Day this Congress and the President have been focused almost exclusively on Iraq, and there is absolutely no question that we will soon be at war. Meanwhile, the economy is showing serious signs of stress, and this body is doing virtually nothing about it. Only 10 percent of our domestic appropriation bills are in place for the coming year. We are looking down a deep economic shaft with very little light at the end of the tunnel. We are in danger of leaving for the election with almost nothing being done to help provide that light, and there is a lot of talk in this institution about simply passing a series of continuing resolutions and then finally kicking all of these problems over until after the election, conveniently. Mr. Speaker, the rules of this House are designed to help the House leadership address problems. Instead, on this occasion as they have been used on so many other occasions, they are being used to avoid problems. And then, even though we have only passed five of the 13 appropriation bills required in this House, we have some Members of this House who sound like the great Alibi Ike of the Cosmos, because they look for somebody else to blame for the fact that we have not been able to do our own job. I think that that has to stop. I think people need to understand just how bad it would be if this government were to function on a continuing resolution for any significant period of time.”