David Obey

That may be perfectly reasonable because this country cannot operate without a functioning airline system. We understand that. But we want to know whether or not the administration is in support of this or not. Secondly, I want a clear…

Are they willing to ask for it so we know they have run the trap lines and think this is fiscally sound?

If Members have amendments, they have a responsibility to be here in a timely fashion. It is not the committee's responsibility to protect Members who are not protecting themselves.

I am concerned with the integrity of this Congress. And I think we can start demonstrating that integrity by being willing to make the specific trade-offs that we have to make in the real world. The problem that we have is that the tax…

Mr. Chairman, let me explain what this amendment is all about. I served in the legislature with a fellow by the name of Harvey Dueholm, who was a retired farmer, probably the single best legislator I ever knew. He had a number of pithy…

so far, with the six appropriations bills which have passed the House, we have seen bipartisan support for every single one of them. This is the first bill that will generate considerable opposition, and I want to explain why. The fault…

I would say that the issue of equity in a democracy is not "chicken manure," it is fundamental to our ability to govern in a democracy with a very large mistrust of government and public officials. I can understand why someone who thinks…

Mr. Chairman, I did not bring this amendment before us tonight, but as long as it is here, I am going to vote for it, because I do believe that the Social Security commission staff report issued last week is a cynical effort to trash…

What is this? That is the sound of one hand clapping. The only point the gentleman from Michigan is trying to make is that eradicating coca without giving farmers something else to do is not very effective. It produces the same results as…

I am for doing both, but I am not for spending over $1 billion last year and almost that amount this year over 1,000 miles away from home when we still have drug addict after drug addict roaming the streets of our cities untreated and…

I think Members need to understand that we are in danger of seeing news outlets in this country virtually homogenized. We are in danger of seeing many local voices stilled by these constant mergers and mega-mergers between media…

I simply would like to do two things: first of all, congratulate the gentleman for the bill he has brought to us. I obviously do not agree with all of it, but I certainly intend to support it unless some surprises occur on the House floor…

I will also ask them to vote yes on a later motion that we will make to add three items to this proposition. We will simply be asking the House to approve three Senate actions that would eliminate the rescission for FEMA, that would fund…

I think more than a few Members of this House and a lot of people outside of this institution have been pleasantly surprised at the relative unity this House has had on a bipartisan basis on appropriation bills this year. Last night we…

Mr. Speaker, we are asking the House of Representatives today to approve three items which are supported by the Republican administration. Number one, FEMA. The Director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration tells us we are…

I intend to vote to go to conference. The problem is what is not in this bill. It does not contain the roughly $1 billion that we have been given indications from the administration itself that in the end we will need to meet our…

I am saying that the administration itself delayed the request for over 2 months until they could get their precious tax gift to rich people out of the Congress.

Absolutely, no problem with the timing. I have a lot of problems with the timing of the White House on this one.

It had been the reasonable expectation of reformers on both sides of the aisle, I believe, that the two competing propositions would be allowed to face each other in a stand-up, fair fight, Shays-Meehan on one side of the issue and the…

I would point out it is the majority in this House that held this supplemental up for 4 months. This debate does not have one whit to do with whether our military personnel will get the help they need or not. They will. They will have…

The White House itself announced they were not going to send down the request for the supplemental until after the tax bill was finished because they did not want to upset the apple cart on their tax bill. The last time I looked, the White…

I think there is no rational reason whatsoever for the House not to do what the Senate has already done and to provide the money that we badly need in the agricultural area, and to provide the money that we know we have a moral obligation…

I believe that we have something approaching a national crisis with respect to public confidence in the safety of the food that we import and that we consume. All of us have seen story after story about the outbreak of serious disease…

How many times have we all heard; ``The government is too blasted big. Get the government out of our lives.'' I bet my colleagues have heard it a lot. Yet the first time that we have an outbreak of disease someplace, the first time that…

I simply want to observe that there has been a false parallelism in this debate between the idea that if you are going to prevent drilling off the coast of Florida, then somehow it makes sense to prevent the construction of this pipeline…