David Obey Quotes (38 Quotes)

This bill is replete with gimmicks, ... It hides 45 billion in budgetary sleight of hand. This would be laughable if it wasn't so corrosive to the public's perception of what we are doing.

Obey struggles to balance the demands of his faith with the obligations of pluralism -- and for this, he receives few rewards. Recently, he offered an amendment to increase funding for child care, job training and domestic abuse programs as a way of taking some of the pressure off women to have abortions. ... whose concern for life ends at the checkbook's edge.

You've got the votes. Let's pass this turkey, get it on to the president, let him veto it, let's clear the air and then let's really sit down and do business,

The report shows that Mr. Tomlinson was willing to ride roughshod over the law to impose his political mind-set on PBS programming, ... The Corporation for Public Broadcasting needs significant reform and vigorous oversight.

There is a sign that hangs on my wall that says, 'What is it you want me to do to somebody else that is more important than what you want me to do for you?'

We are going to see a tremendous number of health professionals retire over the next 8-10 years. We are not doing nearly enough to deal with this problem.

We have to take a look at what advertising itself contributes to added health costs, especially when it is aimed at gullible people.

I think we have to be very careful when we toss around terms like 'cut health care costs.' We would do very well to expect a cut in the rate of increase.

I opposed Clinton's budget deal in 1997 because he brought in $115 billion cut in Medicare that created greater pressure for providers not to participate.

We have had to drag this administration kicking and screaming to get additional funding for border security. If he is finally serious about securing our borders I say 'Welcome sir, it's taken you long enough,

The president's speech was an admission of gross miscalculation ... The army is already stretched incredibly thin. We don't have the personnel to respond if we had other problems in the world.

The services provided to patients are so much broader in scope than in the past, all of that costs more money and I believe that it all has value.

We need to be careful when we talk about cutting health care costs. They are not going to be reduced - what we really want to do is do is slow the rate of increase.

The NRA was one of the items that we pointed to when we added money to the labor, health and Education appropriations bill by reducing the size of the tax cut.

It makes no sense to tell the country and the profession that we will make the investment to pass it, and then turn around and not fund it.

We're going to see the rest of it on the installment plan,

In a subcommittee hearing Thursday, Rep. David Obey, D-Wisconsin, warned White House budget director Mitch Daniels No information, no money. ... severe attitude problem.

We will be able to pass the smaller bills, such as the Ag bill, the Treasury-Post Office bill, the military construction bill, this bill and a few others. Come September, guess what Everyone will discover 'Oh my God, there is not enough money here to meet the expectations of either side of the aisle on education, on health care, on labor programs, and on science programs.'

It is a moral imperative that we adopt that amendment on the defense bill. Otherwise the 21 million in this bill for victims of torture is a joke and a sham.

every day that we delay professionalizing FEMA and depoliticizing it is another day that taxpayers' money is being spent by an agency which has been demonstrated under these circumstances to be incompetent.

Whether you are from Minnesota, Wisconsin or any other Northern tier state, you are not going to like the reimbursement formula. The problem we face is that we wouldn't have that formula if a majority of the states didn't like it, and they have the majority of the votes.

If you want quality service, you have to pay for it. You don't buy into waste. I have great misgivings about the amount of advertising that we see in the health care field, some by hospitals, a lot by drug companies.

They are targeting programs for poor people to pay for tax cuts for rich people.

We asked for specific information on how they (FEMA) are awarding contracts and who contracts are going to,

Society as a whole is better off when information is available to the public. Whether you are talking about how to prevent disease, or about who does the best job of treating disease, it is useful to provide as much information to the public as possible.

What we should be doing in this amendment is to provide every single dollar that we need to conduct the operation now going on in Kosovo. We should not provide one dime less and neither should we try to use this to play games with the budget.

Yet because the administration has not consulted the agencies it is moving around, the proposal risks creating huge new redundancies and unnecessarily expanding the size of government at a huge cost to taxpayers.

It's more than a little late.

Obey is unbowed. I think if you asked God, he'd say the Ten Commandments were a road map for living, ... Instead, you have these self-appointed pharisees who think the Ten Commandments can be turned into a stiletto to use against their political opponents.

This is a very difficult question. If you take a look at the aging population and demographics, we are going to have a big increase in the number of health care jobs needed in the state and in the country.

By the administration's own estimates, the new Homeland Security Department would employ at least 160,000 people,

What that, in essence, says is that you're not going to worry about the biggest disasters that could occur, you're only going to worry about the smaller ones,

We don't have enough people going into those fields and there is a high burnout rate in some health care professions, so it is very important that we get more people into the pipeline right now.

It puts the provider in a situation of looking for ways to have someone else pick up a piece of the cost. As a result, every customer who has insurance ends up paying a 'hidden premium.' It simply adds to the health care cost burden.

throwing money at the problem with no game plan.

Tomlinson's resignation should be used to bring people together, not divide them as he and the administration have done,

Recent news reports suggesting that the CPB increasingly is making personnel and funding decisions on the basis of political ideology are extremely troubling.

I think this goes far broader than public broadcasting. I think across the board there is an effort by Republican ideologues to force institutions across society to bend to their will. You see it in House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's raising hell with the courts and demanding they pursue his brand of justice. . . . You see it in this action here.