Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on October 2006

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Is it what I hear? Is it really what I hear, that we are too lazy to do our job? Because that is what I heard.

Every 6 months we are supposed to come here to this floor and ante up in regards to the national emergencies. A national emergency, by its whole name, is temporary and short-lived. It is temporary and short- lived.

I guess that is why I would have to quote Milton Friedman: ``Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.''

Mr. Speaker, that says it all. That says it all.

There is a whole different way of getting to these perpetrators, these bad actors, and we should do that. However, we are rushing through this thing, and all I hear is: Wait a minute, if we take this down, then all these people are going to get off.

That is not what happens. Remember, we are bicameral, so the House will pass something, then it will go to the Senate where most of the time it will die, but at least they might get something right in this case as foreign affairs. They probably will get something right in regards to who the people are and what is the vehicle to do this in.

This is exactly why Senator Church did this in 1976. It was to try to orchestrate how do we put this together, how do we have checks and balances, and how do we make this work for everybody?

This isn't the way. We just saw a COVID national emergency. Today there is not one inventory in that disbursement record--not one, not one--of $4.8 trillion. That isn't chump change, Mr. Speaker. That is a bunch of money. That is a bunch of money.

So I look at this, and I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is time to get rid of these national emergencies. We can do this. We can do it right. We can make everybody look all right.

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