Dave Obey On Bush's Press Conference

The Gavel

Chairman Obey on President Bush’s Press Conference

April 4th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Today, Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey made the following remarks at a public forum at the University of Wisconsin in response to the President’s attack on Congressional Democrats yesterday:

“The President is crying crocodile tears about the fact that the Congress has not yet passed his take-it-or-leave-it spending request for the Iraq war. The President said we left Washington without finishing our work, complaining that it has taken us 57 days to process his ‘my way or no way’ request. Let me remind the President that last year, the Republican Congress took 118 days to pass his supplemental request. Further, let me remind the President that his Republican party in Congress left Washington for the year without finishing their work on the entire $463.5 billion domestic budget. If we had not had to spend the first month of this new session finishing the work they should have done last year, we might have had more time to turn to the President’s ‘my way or no way’ request, but we first had to clean up their last year’s leftovers.

“The President needs to stop his huffing and puffing and recognize that he is no longer dealing with a rubber stamp Congress. There must be compromise. We have already adjusted our proposal by giving him a waiver on troop readiness. When are we going to hear any talk of reasonable compromise from him?

“As usual the President is trying to govern by dividing rather than uniting. That is why his Presidency is in such disarray. When will he ever learn?

“The President is simply thrashing out as a diversionary tactic to obscure the fact that he has no viable policy in Iraq or in the entire Middle East for that matter. We need to come together to fashion such a policy.”

 

Tags: Dave Obey Bush Democrats