David Obey: “we have heard a lot of talk here today from people who understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing. When…”

“we have heard a lot of talk here today from people who understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing. When someone says that we do not have cuts in this bill for education and health care and job training, what they ignore is what happens to real people. This budget is not the last budget for the Clinton administration. This budget is the first budget for the next decade. We do not have a society or a country frozen in time. We have a growing population. They have growing needs. We are going to have over a million additional students in college needing Pell grants, needing Work Study. We are going to have about a million and a half additional students in high school, needing title I and all the rest. We are going to have more people needing medical services, because our population is growing larger and it is aging. We are going to have about 25 million more people in the coming decade. It would be kind of nice if the people's bill, which this bill is, responds to those growing needs. But it does not. That is why it cuts the President's educational request by $3 billion. It cuts worker training and other worker protection programs by $1.7 billion. It cuts health care by $1 billion from the President's request. Why does it do that? Because we are moving into a new era. We have been in an era of huge deficits. We are now moving into an era of large surpluses. We have some choices.…”