David Obey

I would simply like to make the point that on the item that the gentleman mentioned in connection with Secretary Brown there is, in fact, a request from the Pentagon on that point, and that would not be covered by this amendment.

the Air Force wants to buy C-130-J transport aircraft but they only wanted to buy one of them. The Air Force, instead, is getting six more planes than they expected. I do not really know whether they need those additional planes or not…

I simply want to note that one of the previous speakers mentioned the House passage of the Wisconsin welfare reform proposal last week. As Members know, what happened last week is the House passed the waiver request sent in by the State of…

I thank the chairman. As I say, I recognize that IMET is a blunt instrument to use, so it may be the wrong way to proceed. We will now have a year to find out, and if we do not get some real action that affects things in real ways on the…

the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] would be on it. There is no question that any time he comes to the floor he knows his subject. He is speaking because of what he believes, and he always does it with grace and with honor, and I…

the biggest social failure in this country is welfare. I think everybody understands that. It is a mess. It destroys work incentives. It is hated by many of the people on it and it is hated by the taxpayers. I think the No. 1 priority of…

I would just like to observe, if we really want to measure whether anything real is happening here or not we would recognize that right now outside of the Wisconsin delegation on the House floor there are exactly two people from other…

all I would say is that the substitute we are going to offer simply asks two things: make sure there is a 30-day comment period because the proposal before us does not go into effect for a year and a half, so there is hardly a rush. And…

let me simply say that the gentleman referred to the hearing that was held in my hometown. I would simply observe that that hearing was held before the fact. The citizens of Wisconsin have had no opportunity to comment on their view of the…

What is the legislature going to do? Are they going to accept those line item vetoes or not?

this amendment cuts $1,525,000 from the IMET account. The amount of the cut corresponds exactly to the amount requested for the high-income countries of Austria, Finland, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Singapore, India, and Bahrain. The per…

I stand here as a longtime supporter of the Eximbank. I remember in the early years that I served on this committee and in fact in the early years when I was chairman, my ranking Republican member was then the distinguished gentleman from…

Yes, I do. Mr. Chairman, again, I think the issue here is whether or not a committee's jurisdiction is more important than the necessity to protect taxpayers' money. This provision has been carried for years without the objection of the…

this amendment restores the requirement that foreign countries agree to an outside audit as a condition of receiving FMF grants. It has been included in the foreign operations bill for a number of years as a result of a number of notable…

I would rather you withhold the commendation of me personally and instead let the language stand, because I remember how tough it was to get these provisions in the appropriation bill in the first place. I remember shouting at people from…

I would simply say that the fact that that legislation has been passed twice by the House and has not been passed by the Senate is not encouraging to me. That does not sound to me like a very good track record. It seems to me that since…

this amendment is a very straightforward amendment. It would simply raise to $50 million the limitation now in the bill of $25 million on the amount of noncash support that we can provide for the International War Crimes Tribunal in The…

As I said, Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to this amendment because I recognize the importance of the Exim in extending business abroad and enabling us to provide exports. I am going after their administrative account because I do not like an…

I do not think necessarily that administrative expenses are tied directly to the level of financial support the agency gets. Some deals are a whole lot more complicated than others. The world is a lot more complicated than that.

since the gentleman asked me to consider withdrawing it, I simply want to point out that the only reason that this amendment is not drawn to specifically forbid aid to those countries and simply subtracts the amount that is provided in aid…

let me simply observe that this bill is probably the least popular bill to emerge from the Committee on Appropriations every year, and I think it is without question the most misunderstood bill. If we take a poll of America, we will see…

In my view, Mr. Chairman, as far as I am concerned, the administration's position in support of MFN and in opposition to this is irrelevant. I have an obligation to exercise my own judgment. The gentleman is free to characterize the…

Twenty-four. How time flies. I served with Charlie for all of the time that he has served here. I want to say as one Member to another that I will miss him greatly. He has brought wit, he has brought compassion, he has brought…

Mr. Chairman, I used to serve in the State legislature many years ago with a man by the name of Harvey Dueholm. He was a Danish farmer. He looked like a basset hound. He had the strongest character of any human being I have ever known, and…

this amendment goes to the military training account. Last year the military training account was funded at $39 million. This year, despite the fact that the bill is being cut by around $1 billion, this account is going to receive a $6…