David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, I guess what this rule shows today is that no matter how hard and no matter how many rank and file Members…”

“Mr. Speaker, I guess what this rule shows today is that no matter how hard and no matter how many rank and file Members work to try to reach a bipartisan agreement on appropriation bills, that, in the end, the majority party leadership insists on following a practice which will, once again, turn what should have been a bipartisan bill into another dog fight. I see no constructive purpose to be served by that. Secondly, it puts provisions in this bill which are absolutely not germane to this bill. The problem we have is that we have gone through this session and time after time after time, we have been told by the majority party thou shalt not offer nongermane legislative items to appropriation bills. And, yet, this bill does the very thing which we have been lectured on repeatedly and puts in order an amendment which most certainly goes far behind the scope of this bill; that is the so-called lockbox amendment. Mr. Speaker, I have no expectation that I will win this point today, because I know that, especially in an election year, Members, unfortunately a lot of Members, focus a whole lot more on the political look of a proposal than they do on the substantive result.”