Melvin Watt: “Let me just first be clear that we are not expanding anything in this amendment. The statute says exactly what the…”

“Let me just first be clear that we are not expanding anything in this amendment. The statute says exactly what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is supposed to do. This amendment just allows the funding to enable them to do it. This is an appropriations bill. We are not supposed to be expanding or contracting anything in appropriations bill. That is what I thought. The Appropriations Committee is about money, not about authority, not about expanding or contracting authority. So I don't know what my colleague was talking about when he said we are expanding something if we pass this amendment. Second, there is some debate from some of my colleagues, and I could understand the first-term Member who got up and says I don't know why we have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What I can't understand is why the subsequent colleague who serves on Financial Services got up and said the same thing, because he was on the Financial Services Committee and served with me when we created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”