Marcy Kaptur: “That is really what the vote tomorrow is about. We know that the constitutional authority of the House as the place…”

“That is really what the vote tomorrow is about. We know that the constitutional authority of the House as the place within the Congress; that is, the first to authorize and appropriate dollars through the U.S. Treasury, was essentially shut off. Our Members were muzzled. We were not privy to information that should be ours in relation to the dollars of our taxpayers being put at risk either inside the United States or outside the United States, and we thought we were going to have full debate and disclosure on this matter when a decision was made without the involvement of the legislative branch of the United States of America. We now have to resort to special parliamentary tactics in order to bring this measure to a vote on the floor, and the gentleman is correct, that there are so many questions we want answers to that we are being asked, which are impossible for us to obtain, and we think that that is not what the Constitution intended, that in fact this is not a monarchy, this is not a parliamentary government. We are not an arm of the executive branch. We have our own status within the Constitution, and our constituents have an absolute right to know when their tax dollars are at risk, as they are, in this agreement, what the terms of that agreement are, what the terms of repayment are, what the nature of the collateral is. We need to know how fast money is being drawn down. Otherwise you cannot make a judgment as to what might happen in the future.…”