Thomas Garrett

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to make a clarification because while I support this resolution, I oppose the description that some here have used. They are calling it a budget. This isn't a budget. It is a paper trail of crimes our government commits against the future of our Nation vis-a-vis overwhelming debt. We need to be honest. We are sitting on $20 trillion in debt, and aside from starting the repeal of the unaffordable care act, this does nothing to address that. Reluctantly I will vote for it to repeal the monstrosity that is the unaffordable care act. We were told we need to pass the bill so that we could find out what was in it. Well, we found out what was in it. We saw premiums skyrocket; we saw families lose their plans and their doctors, even the ones they liked and they wanted to keep; and we saw businesses struggle. Now we are left in a position where we need to pass this resolution to get rid of what we found. Liberty and self-determination are the lifeblood of this Nation, and the Nation is terminally ill. Our debt is a cancer that continues to grow; and like a cancer, it doesn't discriminate. It is colorblind, it is gender neutral, and it doesn't care about your political affiliation or what State you are from. It is here, and it continues to grow. Our children are being encumbered, packaged, and sold to the gallows by way of unprecedented debt. This is an unprecedented treatment, but if we continue down the ObamaCare unaffordable care act path that we are on, the results are guaranteed. Today's resolution provides treatment for some of the symptoms, but it is about time that we started getting to the root causes of the disease. The more government encroaches on the lives of its citizens, the more debt grows, the less our liberties can breathe, and the sicker we become. I may be new here, but in Virginia we keep a balanced budget; and it is about time we got serious about one in D.C. I will vote to pass this here today, but I refuse to call it a budget. I refuse to ignore the problems the unaffordable care act was meant to address. Problems aren't political, solutions are, and we can provide a better way.

Mr. GARRETT

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the REINS Act, H.R. 26, for any number of reasons. I can't help but point out that I have heard my esteemed colleagues in opposition to this bill refer on multiple occasions to the Federal bureaucracy as a well-oiled machine. Mr. Chairman, there are, indeed, well-oiled machines that undergird this institution, but I would submit the Federal bureaucracy is not one of those. We have heard that the regulatory burden, as it relates to the loss of jobs, is equal to a listeria outbreak. What I would submit is that if we could avoid a listeria outbreak, would we not choose to do just that? While looking at the loss of jobs as related to Federal regulation, we overstep the argument by avoiding the jobs not created as a result of Federal regulations. Should these things also not be amongst the items that we consider? A wise man once said that the bureaucracy will continue to expand to meet the expanding needs of the bureaucracy. In 2017, in the United States, indeed, it seems we find ourselves in that very situation. Arguments that the REINS Act is contrary to the Constitution, I would submit, are actually 180 degrees from the truth. In fact, Article I of the Constitution gives the power to make law to this legislative branch of our government and gives the power to generate revenue, here, as well as spend. The definition of ``law,'' according to the Oxford Dictionary, is: ``The system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties.'' I will submit that the very regulatory overreach that we consider here today is, in fact, tantamount to law and extraconstitutional in and of itself. My esteemed colleague from Pennsylvania suggested, and I agree, that the REINS Act is but a good start. The power to spend is Article I. The power to make laws is Article I. REINS is a rudder on the ship of constitutionality that will right that ship and move it only in the correct direction. Regulations that have the power to take liberty or property rights or the wealth of those earned by their own labor are tantamount to law and, indeed, extraordinary constitutionally as it relates to an executive branch entity, and they should not be exercised. Mr. Chairman, we hear that the people's House is responsible for this and the people's House is responsible for that. Well, the people's House is to ensure that the people have a voice in the matters of spending and lawmaking that our Founders who laid out Article I of the Constitution envisioned, and currently, that is simply not the case. H.R. 26 is simply a step back towards that right direction of constitutionality. With that in mind, I strongly support the legislation.