David Obey

I would just ask this of the gentleman from Washington. If it is true that his heart is so concerned about the plight of our Native Americans, then why did he not offer his amendment in committee when it would not be used as an effort to…

That is the same stale song we have heard from that side on every bill. What they are saying is, ``This is only the second step. We know these bills are inadequate, but somebody else will make them responsible down the line.'' That is, in…

Yes. Mr. Chairman, to put that in perspective, the majority party has brought to this floor a bill which cuts the Indian Health Service by $507 million, and we objected to that. We objected to that in our minority views. Now we are being…

Mr. Chairman, this is not a static country. In the next decade, we will have 20 to 25 million new people added to our population. We will have 35 to 40 percent more commercial airline flights, God help us all. We will have about 35 million…

Well, if you do not let the Justice Department use its own money and if you do not let the agencies who are going to receive the money from that suit, you are not going to have a successful suit. The fact is that this suit will bring in…

The point of the letter is to cover their tails over there. That is the point of the letter.

I understand the passion that we see on both sides of this issue. I simply want to say that I understand the good intentions of the gentleman who offers the amendment. He is very concerned about a very important cluster of programs. But I…

this motion is very simple. It deletes a provision in the bill that was added by the rule through a self-executing amendment that has the effect of cutting the fiscal 2000 appropriation in this bill for Child Care and Development Block…

this amendment tries to do a lot of good things. One of the most important things is that it tries to add back $38 million to correct the fact that this bill cuts 95 percent of the funding for the administration's nursing home initiative…

Mr. Chairman, I have known the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) for a long time now. I have never seen a day when I have thought that he did not act out of absolute patriotism and out of an absolute dedication to what he believes is…

I have a nephew that benefits from special education. But this amendment is a Johnny-one-note approach to education, and it ought to be defeated. We will be offering an amendment later on in the process which attempts to add a billion and…

as I understand it, if that proviso is stricken, then the CBO is estimating that this bill will be $479 billion above the budget cap in budget authority and $1.7 billion in outlays. I want to make sure I understand what these numbers are…

I want tax cuts that are aimed, for instance, at small businessmen so they can help provide health insurance for their employees. I know what it is like to run a small business on a 1 percent or 2 percent profit. I do not want tax cuts…

Mr. Chairman, as far as class warfare is concerned, the fact is that the working class has already lost and the wealthiest 2 percent have already won. The wealthiest 1 percent of people have made so much in additional money over the past 5…

I would simply say that when we talk about the Job Corps, we are talking about young people who up to that moment in their lives are 100-percent failures and the Job Corps manages to salvage about 50 percent of those young people. That is…

I think that we should require of every other program administrator in government the same pristine perfection that we demonstrate in the Congress every day. I am being sarcastic. I assume people understand that. I mean, the gentleman is…

I want to repeat a little history lesson. This graph shows that at the end of World War II our national debt, as a percentage of our total national income, was more than 100 percent because we fought World War II first and thought about…

Mr. Chairman, the reason this bill is here is because 15 million kids go home every day to an empty house because so many of them have two parents working outside of the home. That is why we are providing after-school centers. If this…

I think we ought to call a spade a spade here today and recognize what is happening. The majority party in 1995 tried to shut down the government in order to force President Clinton to cut $270 billion out of Medicare and to make deep cuts…

we are informed by the Secretary of Education that they have no intention of trying to prevent this kind of activity. In fact, the Secretary indicates he sent a letter urging them to emphasize the value of military service as a post high…

Mr. Chairman, last year during the debate on education issues, Democrats focused primarily on the need to reduce classroom size. On the Republican side of the aisle, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) said, and he made a…

Mr. Chairman, again, the choice we face is this, both parties want to increase support for special education. The question is, are we going to do that by scaling back by just a tiny amount the size of the tax cuts that the majority party…

who are we trying to kid? I have been in this House 31 years, and there has not been a year when the Republicans in this House have not favored less funding for Federal education than Democrats. Over the last 5 years, first they wanted to…

All I would say, Mr. Chairman, is that the Senate has brought out its authorization bill and it has not included the Teacher Empowerment Act. So that may be false hope. Secondly, with respect to block granting, what the majority has done…

Mr. Chairman, I want to do two things: First of all, as every Member knows, as hard as Members work, our staffs work twice as hard. I would simply like to take a moment to thank Christina Hamilton, Norris Cochran, Mari Johnson, Scott…