David Obey: “I will certainly be casting a ``no'' vote, and I think I owe the House an explanation. Some of the items in this bill…”

“I will certainly be casting a ``no'' vote, and I think I owe the House an explanation. Some of the items in this bill were requested by the administration more than a year ago. This bill originally was supposed to do basically five major things and a few minor things. It was supposed to provide disaster relief; it was supposed to provide funding for the cost of the troops' operating in Bosnia and in Kuwait. The administration also asked the Congress to provide replenishment funding for the International Monetary Fund to help them protect the U.S. economy from further currency crunches. It also asked the Congress to provide the arrearages that we have had for many years so that we could more effectively shape the direction of the United Nations. And it had some other items, including a $16 million request to actually make Kennedy-Kassebaum work, providing the Federal assistance necessary to see to it that persons who did lose their health coverage when they changed jobs could actually get the help that they were promised in that legislation. This bill is very different now. It has a laundry list of items that should not be in the bill. And there are major items which should be in the bill which are sadly missing.”