David Obey: “there are a lot of us on this side of the aisle who feel that many of the reductions that are being made in this bill to…”

“there are a lot of us on this side of the aisle who feel that many of the reductions that are being made in this bill to crucial environment programs, to crucial natural resources programs, are being made for the purpose of transferring these resources to the Ways and Means Committee to, in effect, finance a tax cut for lots of people making $200,000 a year or more. We do not happen to think that is the best use of money. There is another program which is being savaged in this bill which is the Indian Education Act. This bill eliminates funding for Indian education. My amendment would simply restore funding for that program. We would restore $80 million for the amendment and we would take it from sources that we think are much less damaged. For instance, we take it from the fossil fuels account, which is already very much over the authorized amount. It is $163 million over the amount provided in the authorized committee. So we think that $36 million reduction does no harm there and it takes it from other sources which we think do very much less harm. Mr. Chairman, let me explain what it is we are doing. I had always thought that there was general recognition that the education of Indian children was significantly a Federal responsibility, because of the Federal trust status that many of our tribes have.”