David R. Obey

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1782, I call up the bill (H.R. 3082) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment thereto, and I have a motion at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I have only one speaker on this side.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I was in error. We have two speakers on this side.

I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Madam Speaker, we really do need to bring this to a conclusion, so I yield 1 minute to the last speaker, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the pending legislation.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate all of the kind words that have been said about me tonight. I must confess that I sometimes am more at ease when I am being pummeled than when I am being praised, but maybe that's just my quirky character.

Let me simply say that this is the last time that I will be making any comments on this floor. I want to thank the Members on both sides of the aisle for their courtesies over the past 42 years, and I want to say that it has been a privilege for each and every one of us, whether we have served here one term or 21 or even more, it is a privilege for all of us to have been sent to this place, to the people's House. I can think of no greater privilege and you cannot. This is the only place in the government that you have to be elected in order to occupy our jobs. In the Senate you don't have to be elected. Even in the Presidency, you don't have to be elected under quirky circumstances, and I think all of us can be proud of that distinction.

Let me also say, Madam Speaker, that I do think I need to say at least a word or two about the subject at hand, this piece of legislation. John Wesley said that his rule for living was this: do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

I wish I could say that this legislation lived up to that lofty goal. It does not. It has many, many shortcomings.

The only reason for supporting this legislation today--and it is an overriding one--is to keep the government operating. If I were to vote my preferences, I would vote ``no'' because I believe we should have before us today a continuing resolution for the rest of

the fiscal year. The only reason we do not is because only in the United States Senate can you get a majority of votes for any proposition and still lose because of their peculiar rules.

I think the difference between the way our two respective parties have handled similar situations is interesting.

Four years ago, when our party took control after 12 years of rule by our friends on the other side of the aisle, the outgoing Republican majority chose to simply dump most of the work for that fiscal year onto the incoming Democratic majority by passing a short-term CR. That meant that we had to spend the first 2 months dealing with the previous year's business rather than being able to start with a clean slate in dealing with new problems.

In contrast, today's outgoing Democratic majority has tried mightily to clear the deck for the incoming Republican majority by producing a full-year CR, which attempts to compromise by producing funding levels that were $46 billion below the President's budget and which amounted to a freeze at the previous year's level. Passage of that legislation would have meant that the incoming Republican majority would be able to start with a clean slate in working with the President on a whole host of major problems.

But, instead, we are here today confronted with this legislation, which expires on March 4 and which will require the incoming Republican majority to spend the first 2 months of its stewardship dealing with last year's business. I think that's unfortunate. Through the use of the Senate filibuster, it has been assured that we could not complete a full-year CR. That action simply mirrors the procedural resistance with which we have been faced all year long with the Senate minority engaging in more than 87 filibuster actions in order to grind matters to a halt and frustrate the Congress' ability to do anything on the budget front by majority vote.

That is unfortunate; but at this late date, there is no point in arguing. The die is cast, obviously. The only responsible choice at this point is to recognize reality, even though that means that the early days of the next Congress will be unnecessarily confrontational and partisan. It means that, on budget issues, most of next year will simply be about demonstrating political leverage rather than working through honest, substantive differences to reasonable conclusions. Because of that, I most reluctantly, but firmly, suggest an ``aye'' vote.

I want to take an additional minute to thank two people in this Chamber who the public will never know, but there are many, many of them over Capitol Hill who work day in and day out to produce a better country, and the public never knows their names. One of them with us tonight is Jeff Shockey, who has done an admirable job as minority staff director on the committee for years. Sometimes I wish he hadn't been so good, but I do appreciate the work that he has done.

And, lastly, I do not know what I would have done without Beverly Pheto as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. She is an absolute true professional. She has imagination, she has courage, she has stamina, and most of all, she has an amazing ability to put up with me, and that alone ought to get her the Congressional Medal of Honor.

So, with that, I would simply say good-bye to you-all, and I would hope that we would cast a responsible vote so that we can get about the country's business next year, even though many of us will not be here to participate.

I yield back the balance of my time