David Obey: “As he knows, this committee has been trying to convince the House leadership for months that with a few billion of…”

“As he knows, this committee has been trying to convince the House leadership for months that with a few billion of additional allocation, we could produce appropriation bills that would produce very large bipartisan majority support in both Houses. As he knows, we have been asking for roughly around $10 billion. I know the gentleman has. We have been told, 'Oh, you cannot do that because the Committee on Appropriations is a big spender.' But as I understand the rule that just passed, the bill that will follow ours that was approved by the rule will in fact wipe out the requirement to sequester because on the entitlement side of the budget, we see an explosion on the deficit of well over $100 billion; and when you take into account all of the exemptions that you have from this sequestration requirement, the Congress is in essence saying, 'Well, do not worry, it is on the mandatory side. So we will let that $30 billion expansion of the deficit that would be avoided by sequestration, we will let that go ahead.'”