David Obey

Doesn't this whole thing illustrate that there are some people here who are much more concerned about the technical niceties of the procedures of this House than they are on the human implications of what it is we do here? The CHAIRMAN…

let me yield the remaining 2 minutes of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), who was the originator of the language which was stricken.

I offer this amendment simply to have an opportunity to comment on what has just transpired on the House floor. My great mentor and friend through most of my public life has been Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, and perhaps the…

The rules don't allow me to say who I was referring to. The gentleman says we should have studies, we should have hearings. Your party has controlled this Congress for 14 years. The time for studying is over. The time for studying is past…

I reluctantly must concede the point of order. I would have preferred that the gentleman had not made the point of order, but given the fact he has done it, the rule under which this bill is being debated precludes the inclusion of this…

I won't take much time. The Republican bill before us is based on the assumption that the Senate has passed the House Republican budget resolution. It hasn't. This amendment is based on a more responsible assumption. It is in conformance…

for weeks we have been wondering whether the Republican moderates were going to stick to their guns when they said they knew that it was wrong to pass a budget that provided $40 billion in tax cuts for people making $1 million a year while…

Well, I thought you were gritting your teeth; but, nonetheless, that is fine. Mr. Speaker, let me simply say I really regret days like this in the House because I love this institution, and I love what this institution is supposed to…

I would just say I am very happy to work with the gentleman to try to deal with the problem.

I would simply say that what the gentleman is suggesting by insisting on his point of order is that the rules of this House may be bent by the majority in order to provide special interest language in a piece of legislation, but they…

with this bill, we will now have spent as much money in Iraq as we did in Vietnam. If you adjust for inflation, it is now just about the equivalent. It seems to me that spending almost half a trillion dollars of the taxpayers' money is…

because this is the only way that we can protest this egregious corruption of the rules of the House, I respectfully appeal the ruling of the Chair. The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is, Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the…

in the interests of redundancy, I would urge that we defeat the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway). The…

it is ironic that the same rules that were abused in order to pass this legislation in the first place are now being hidden behind the majority in order to prevent us from correcting the flaws in that legislation. We could correct those…

what is behind this amendment is very simple. The gentleman would like to hold the low-income heating assistance funding in this bill hostage to drilling in ANWR. He cannot do that under the rules of the House; and so from his standpoint…

And I would simply say, my understanding is if we can reach this UC agreement, there will be no further votes tonight.

I want it understood that if we do not have an agreement in 10 minutes, I will move to adjourn.

I would simply say, ordinarily, I would agree that the authorizing committee should deal with this issue. But given the fact that the Appropriations Committee at the leadership level took the action to wipe out the Dubai deal, to me it was…

I rise to simply agree with every word the gentleman from Virginia just spoke. I cannot think of a more mindless, shortsighted or ridiculous amendment to be offered that affects a serious problem than this amendment. It is absolutely…

this place is really something else. We just had a debate on an amendment that doesn't do ``nothing'' to or for ``nobody''. The Dubai deal is already dead, and so it is irrelevant whether this House votes for the Gilchrest amendment or…

this bill, or the bill which will be debated under this rule, will spend $92 billion of the taxpayers' money. The largest portion of it will be to fund the continuing war in Iraq. It is here because of the most spectacular military blunder…

Well, I am truly sorry we can't make as much progress on this bill tonight as I had hoped we would be able to make, but I find some of the reasons for that to be quite interesting. And, Madam Chairman, I am going to ask unanimous consent…

I was told that I had one other Member who wanted to speak, but she is detained in another meeting. So I think if the gentleman is interested in yielding back the balance of his time, we could do that on this side as well.

I most certainly am. I am not opposed to the defense portion of this budget, but I am opposed to the other provisions that I described earlier. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to recommit. The Clerk read as…

I will withdraw that request because I did not inform the gentleman ahead of time, and he just happened to get in the line of fire on something he should not have been involved in.