David Obey: “With respect to the comments just made about the President's program of cops on the beat, the President was very clear…”

“With respect to the comments just made about the President's program of cops on the beat, the President was very clear about this, and Mr. Panetta was very clear about this since the beginning of the negotiations. They wanted to make certain that when all of the dust settled we had sufficient funding to guarantee to local communities that we would be able to put 100,000 new cops on the street. That is exactly what he asked for from the beginning. He moved no goal posts, and that is exactly what he got in the end. The President was steadfast on that issue, Mr. Panetta was insistent on it, just as they were on the other issues in the conference. We would not have a bill of this quality today without the insistence of the President and Mr. Panetta. I certainly want to suggest that anybody who suggests that the White House changed what it wanted is dead wrong. They made clear they wanted 100,000 cops and that is what they got.”