David Obey

Mr. Chairman, let me simply make one point in response to what the gentleman said with respect to the troops in Bosnia. I certainly want to join in the salute to them. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Livingston, and I accompanied the…

I yield myself 50 seconds to simply note that despite the comment of the previous speaker, the President has never threatened a shutdown of the Government. That has come over from their side of the aisle. It has come from time to time from…

Mike Stephens served this committee for a long, long time, beginning in 1976, and served as the subcommittee clerk and staff director for the Labor-HHS and Education Subcommittee from 1990 to 1994. He then served as the chief minority…

the gentleman is wrong. The gentleman indicates we do not want people to know how Washington works. I quite disagree. I think the gentleman is a perfect example, and so is his amendment, of exactly how Washington works: Protect the big…

I feel like the actor Bill Murray in that movie ``Groundhog Day''; we keep doing this again and again and again and again. We are 5 months into the fiscal year. We are supposed to have the appropriations bills done. Yet we have a huge…

as everyone knows, we have already indicated the problems in this bill for education and for environmental cleanup. The focus of this motion to recommit is quite different. Mr. Speaker, after passage of the Veterans' Administration…

I think the Everglades are a great national treasure, and I have consistently in the past supported every effort that has been before us to try to help preserve the Everglades. But I think this amendment is, frankly, walking around under…

I think it is environmentally criminal to see what has been allowed to happen to the Everglades over the past three decades or more. But the fact is, if you take a look around the country, you have to get in line for regular…

This Congress has voted to reduce EPA enforcement by one-third. They have voted to gut an entire string of environmental protection programs. And then, having done that, on the appropriations bill, now they come in and say, ``Oh, by the…

I would urge Members to vote against this rule and against this bill. This is probably the worst farm bill to have hit the floor of the House in the last 25 years. I especially want to address myself to dairy. I do not know if Members are…

this farm bill is the worst agriculture bill in the last 30 years, and the Solomon amendment makes it worse, for two reasons. First of all, if you vote for the Solomon amendment, you are going to add $7 billion in financial burdens to…

first of all, let me simply say I have heard many a time Members take the floor of this House and object to the fact that the District of Columbia Government often did not seem to know what it was doing. At times I certainly have shared…

let me simply say I fully agree with everything that the gentleman has said with respect to this issue. In my view, what you have here is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, which means that the Blues and a couple of other…

I would simply like to urge support for this proposition. As I said earlier, this is a result of a great deal of bipartisan work with many people involved, and no one who I know agrees with every single recommendation in the bill. I do…

Let me simply say, as an upper Midwesterner, I think both parties have done a rotten job of dealing with the problems of farmers, certainly dairy farmers in the upper Midwest. I think the existing dairy law has been a joke. I have not…

Let me simply say that I want to join the gentleman in taking note of Terry's tremendous service to this place. I think Members in both parties who worked with Terry Peel understand that he has really epitomized what the word ``service''…

I simply want to take this reservation in order to observe that, unlike so many episodes which the public has seen lately in the Congress where divisions among us have caused great turmoil and consternation both on the floor and throughout…

I do not believe that these are the appropriate levels at which education ought to be funded. I think it will cause a great deal of turmoil at the local level. Keep in mind that, while the Federal Government only provides a small share of…

it is the same kind of wackiness, it seems to me, that has caused us to miss budget targets each year since Ronald Reagan promised that if we just passed his budget, which we did, the budget would be balanced in 4 years.

I just want to correct one statement made by my good friend from Louisiana. The Labor-HHS bill in the Senate has not been subject to a filibuster. In fact, it has never been brought up on the floor. It has never been debated on the floor…

I have served in this House a good many years. I am proud of that fact. But I am absolutely appalled and chagrined at the incredible abuse of the legislative process which is occurring here tonight. This is, I think, perhaps the most…

What this language does on abortion is to remove all of the limitations above last year's law, which the majority party insisted in putting into the Labor, HEW bill when that bill was before us. I am not going to argue about whether that…

if there is no better option available, I will certainly vote for this first proposition. But I have to make clear that this proposition would lead one to believe that last night in the Republican caucus, Goofy and Mickey Mouse got…

But let me simply say that I think we are at a very serious point in the history of this institution. We have seen for the last month an incredibly silly situation in which Government workers were first paid for work that they were…

Mr. Speaker, today we will consider legislation that represents a retreat by the extremist wing of the Gingrich Republicans. Their agenda was to punish old people, punish children, punish veterans, and others by holding this Government…