Leadership Quote by David Obey

It is the rare political sentence that manages to sound both sympathetic and fatalistic, and David Obey’s does it by turning “reimbursement formula” into a quiet parable about democracy’s blunt force. He starts with a bit of retail politics: naming Minnesota and Wisconsin isn’t geography, it’s a wink to constituents who feel perpetually shortchanged. The phrasing invites a shared grievance - you’re right to be mad - while keeping the anger pointed at a system, not a person.

Then comes the pivot that reveals the real intent: Obey isn’t arguing about the merits of the formula so much as inoculating himself against the backlash. “You are not going to like” lowers expectations; it’s preemptive disappointment management. The subtext is Washington’s most candid truth: policy outcomes are often less about fairness than arithmetic. If you’re in the minority, your sense of being wronged can be entirely accurate and still entirely irrelevant.

The line “we wouldn’t have that formula if a majority of the states didn’t like it” frames the arrangement as legitimate because it is popular - not because it is just. That’s a subtle but consequential shift, especially in fiscal fights where “reimbursement” implies deservingness. Obey is translating a wonky intergovernmental battle (Medicaid matching rates, highway funds, federal reimbursements - the genre is familiar) into a civics lesson with an edge: coalition politics is a numbers game, and your region may simply not have the votes.

It works because it’s blunt without being nihilistic. He offers empathy, then hands you the scoreboard.