Wealth & Money Quote by David Obey

Power, in Washington, rarely announces itself as power. It shows up as a line item. David Obey's sentence is the kind of procedural-sounding admission that doubles as a political signal flare: the National Rifle Association isn't just a lobby to be placated, it's a convenient villain to justify reallocating money. By naming the NRA as "one of the items", Obey reduces a culture-war colossus to a talking point in a budget negotiation, a way to make a fiscal pivot feel morally legible.

The intent is defensive and strategic. Obey is explaining how Democrats could afford more spending on labor, health, and education: shrink the tax cut. But he knows "we cut the tax cut" doesn't thrill anyone. "We pointed to the NRA" does. The subtext is that budgets are narratives, and narratives need antagonists. Invoking the NRA lets lawmakers frame redistribution as a corrective to special-interest capture rather than a partisan preference.

Context matters: Obey, a longtime House appropriator, spoke from the world where policy is built in compromises, offsets, and messaging discipline. His wording betrays the insider reality that appropriations debates are also about permission structures. If you can tether a dry budget change to a loaded symbol like the NRA, you give colleagues cover and give voters a story: we're not just spending more, we're reclaiming government from the people who distort it. The line is less a policy argument than a map of how political legitimacy gets manufactured.