John Culberson: “let's be clear. It is not we Members who are shut out, it is the constituents that we represent. On this Financial…”

“let's be clear. It is not we Members who are shut out, it is the constituents that we represent. On this Financial Services bill, those constituents that we represent have been shut out in committee and not offered an opportunity to offer an amendment. On the Appropriations Committee, the war funding bill, life or death for our troops, the most important question facing our Nation, our survival as a Nation and the war on terror, the 19 million Americans that we represent on the Republican side have been shut out of the process and denied an opportunity to offer amendments in debate on the survival of the Nation in the war on terror, on life and death of our soldiers in the field. I, for one, had an amendment to make the Iraqi Government pay more of their own share of this reconstruction and make sure that with oil at $120 a barrel, the Iraqi Government, sitting on the world's third-largest supply of oil, I have an amendment to require the Iraqi Government, that I was going to offer in committee, to make the Iraqi Government pay for the reconstruction of roads, utilities, schools, job training and economic development. Because we have a record debt and deficit in this country, that amendment is an important piece of the debate in the appropriations bill to pay for the war. This is not just any bill that the American people have been shut out of the debate on. It is the bill paying for the lives and safety of our troops in the field.”