David Obey

this Congress is owned lock, stock and barrel by the pharmaceutical industry. That was made obvious on passage of the so-called Medicare drug benefit last year when the majority party rammed through this place, after a 3-hour wait, a…

appropriation bills represent the legislation where we have a chance to put our money where our rhetoric is. On Veterans' Day, I would venture to say that virtually every Member of this House has gone home and spoken about how much we care…

let me simply explain the amendment. As I discussed earlier, under existing law given the tax cuts that the Congress has passed this year, persons making a million dollars or more will on average get a tax cuts of $140,000. Meanwhile, we…

as Members of this House know, when I have objections to the content of a bill, I am not shy in stating them. There are certainly portions of this bill with which I do not agree, but I want to say that it is very unusual and it is a very…

I will take only 1 minute. The budget resolution passed earlier this year told the Congress to find a way to meet the targets in that resolution, even if we had to gut the Clean Water program and to cut the STAG grants. What this motion…

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the Budget Act was to force the Congress to make tough trade-off choices, by making trade-offs between individual programs on the spending side and by making trade-offs between revenue…

I must concede that under the rule that brought this bill to the floor, this amendment is not in order. I regret it. I think the country would be a whole lot better off if we passed the amendment. But I concede the point of order. The…

what we are doing is reducing the increase in the amount of money that is in this bill for consultants.

let me explain what this is. We have had a steady stream of Members for weeks now decrying the fact we just do not have enough resources to do the job we ought to be doing in homeland security or in transportation or in education or in…

there are two problems that we face in dealing with this bill. The first is that we have an agency which is essentially incompetent and dysfunctional. We are trying to protect the Nation's security by working through an agency which is…

whoever designed this proposition today is a real piece of work. This is the bill that was submitted to the Committee on Rules last night, a perfectly coherent bill. I had already indicated my intentions to support the Republican…

I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Speaker, ordinarily, on a piece of legislation like this, there would be virtually no debate and it would be passed routinely, but I think, for the good of the House, we ought to review exactly what we are…

in this form, I am. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to recommit. The Clerk read as follows: Mr. Obey of Wisconsin moves to recommit the conference report on the bill, H.R. 1268, to the committee of conference with…

I yield for purposes of a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller.) (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

can I inquire how much time each side has remaining. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 7\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) has 14 minutes remaining.

Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that we have an argument going between two gentlemen, neither of whom who had any responsibility for the problem that occurred. The responsibility for this problem lies squarely on the shoulders of the majority…

A fair amount has been written about how the responsibility for this mistake lies with congressional staff. I want to simply make the point that the staff was ordered to produce an appropriation bill by a certain deadline. And so they…

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad bill. There are countless good reasons to vote against it. In fact, this bill is a poster child for institutional failure. That is true for several reasons. First of all, because the nine appropriation bills…

we have heard some quite interesting statements tonight. One of the previous speakers derided this side of the aisle for the way we handled the national economy for the 40 years we were in control. Here are the facts: from 1946 until 1979…

I recognize that this bill is some $800 million above the amount that was requested originally by the President, and for that, I congratulate the subcommittee; but if anyone in this House thinks that this is an adequate response to the…

I referred earlier to what is happening in this House, when we see decisions made by subcommittees routinely overturned when somebody does not like them. I do not want to object, because this bill is a serious matter involving homeland…

So let me be explicit. Does that mean that there is no change whatsoever from the decision made in the conference when the conference approved A-76?

in the main, I have no real objections to almost all of the provisions in this bill. I would note with respect to the drought aid for farmers and the disaster relief for States, those two items were like the tail on the dog. Originally…

I think both the Menendez bill and the core bill are headed in the wrong direction on final passage. I would vote against both of them.

the gentleman from Kentucky says that he resents the fact that I have raised some of these shortcomings on the House floor. I am sorry he takes so many things personally. We all recognize that his committee has added $800 million to the…