Steny Hoyer: “Essentially it makes the Appropriations Committee irrelevant…”

“… the sense I think they weaken greatly the Congress and strengthen even more than has happened to date the presidency, making the executive extraordinarily powerful and the Congress much weaker. Essentially it makes the Appropriations Committee irrelevant and powerless to carry out the Founders intent to give paramount and exclusive authority to the Congress for the spending of taxpayer money. Furthermore, I think that shutting the government down has been a tool of political choice by many Republican leaders, including Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and many others, including Vote.” (02:41–02:56)

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.