Federalism
Floor Speech
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Mr. GARDNER. Thank you to the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.
I am here tonight to talk about the proper relationship between the Federal Government and State and local governments, this issue of Federalism, our Nation's founding documents.
When I was first elected, I embarked on a listening tour right after November 2, during which I met with local officials from across my district to talk about issues that they were concerned about, what was on their minds, what challenges they were facing in their offices. At each stop, local leaders talked about the problems facing their communities; and even though every county is different, every community is different, the Federal Government seemed to cause the same problems in each one of them.
In one county in my district, I was told a story by a county commissioner of the time that the commissioner asked his staff to count all of the Federal and State mandates that they placed upon their health and human services department at the county. They counted up the mandates that they were under from national, State regulators, Congress, State legislation, State legislatures. The county commissioner actually asked his staffer to quit counting when he reached 9,000 individual mandates that that one department, at the county level, was under.
On this listening tour and since then, since being sworn in on January 5, at the town meetings that we have held, it never ceases to amaze me that one of the strongest moments of bringing applause to the town meetings is when we talk about what happened on this floor when we first started the 112th Congress, the time when we read, both Democrats and Republicans, the Constitution of the United States before the American people right here on the U.S. House floor.
When I talk about how we joined together in reading the Constitution, people always applaud because it matters to them, because they believe this country continues to be guided by that most fundamental document of our country.
Those 9,000 rules, though, that that county commissioner was talking about were created by Federal and State regulators who don't understand the problems that each of our unique districts faces because they have never been there. They don't know what it's like. They don't understand that each county, each city, each school board knows how to govern their jurisdiction better than anyone in Washington ever could, and they do not understand that an unfunded mandate imposed on the entire country does not work.
Each State and county in this country is unique and often has far better solutions than those of the people here in Washington, D.C., can devise. The Founding Fathers understood this very well and designed a system focused on limiting the authority of the Federal Government and on putting power closer to the people. Our Federalist system has long served as the safeguard of limited government.
As a State legislator from the Eastern Plains of Colorado, I will never forget the time that I received a call from a cabinet member from the previous administration who was urging me to vote for a particular piece of legislation because there was Federal money involved and that the only way that Colorado would receive this Federal funding was if we passed a bill that the Federal Government wanted. They were dangling money out in front of us to pass a bill. That instance proved to me what we continue to see today, which is the power shifting "away" from the States and "to" the Federal Government--but to what end?
Last year, Congress passed a health care bill that places increased Medicaid obligations on already cash-strapped States, which have no way to pay for them. Regulations from agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency continue to drive up the cost of energy and force American jobs overseas. Just today, we heard Senator Murkowski, Senator Begich, and Representative Young testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee on a bill about the need to pursue energy policies in Alaska, polices that will allow them to access the resources of that great State and to release, unleash, as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day. The State is supportive. Witnesses for the Department of Natural Resources testified. Unfortunately, the Federal Government continues to block their progress. The Founding Fathers wouldn't even recognize our country today as the one that they formed over 200 years ago.
Education is another area in which there is the employing of Federalist principles. There is no better example of which we can talk about the differences between the Federal Government and the State government and how the Federal Government continues to overstep its bounds. The Board of Education in Douglas County, Colorado, has taken it upon itself to truly innovate in the area of education financing; but the problem with the system in the Federal Government is that it's a top-down approach. Since when is the Federal Government able to better communicate the needs of children in a community than that community, itself? There are some good initiatives in Congress out there, like the A-PLUS Act, by Mr. Garrett from New Jersey, which would allow the States to opt out of No Child Left Behind funding and use that money toward programs they think deserve attention.
Along with Federal funding comes very prescriptive mandates. The more Federal funding a school receives, the less it's able to listen to its own community--to its teachers, to its parents and, yes, to its students. The more it is forced to listen to the Federal Government say "you can use this money, but you have to use it here, and you have to use it this way," it's tough for a lot of States to say "no" to that in these cash-strapped times. I look forward to addressing some of these issues during the debates of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind; but we must put power back in the hands of teachers and parents, who know best how to teach their children.
Health care is another challenge this country faces as Congress is imposing an individual mandate on citizens to purchase federally approved health insurance. This mandate is contrary to the Federalist principles that we are talking about this evening. The bill forces States to expand their Medicaid eligibility standards. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, by 2019, Colorado will see a 47.7 percent increase in Medicaid enrollees as compared to the estimated national average of 24.7 percent.
The health care bill was created by the Federal Government, and the cost of its expansion has shifted directly back to State budgets. Further, under the takeover of the health care bill, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the authority to enact and to execute rules and regulations that local administrators are required to follow. This takes the power away from States and local governments and wrests it in the hands of the Federal Government.
What is more important, though, is the ingenuity and progress in health care that has been established and accomplished by the States on a State-by-State level. Through this process, they've made significant improvements to our health care industry. Unfortunately, I believe the health care bill that was passed in the last Congress is a step away from that direction.
Last week, I had the opportunity to take my 7-year-old daughter to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell, to visit Independence Hall, and the National
Constitution Center, to talk to the people who work at Independence Hall about the great symbols of freedom in our country, about the writing of those founding documents, about what it meant to talk about freedom, about liberty, about our great Republic. I am reminded of the time when, during recent events in Libya and Egypt, my wife and daughter were watching television, watching the news, when the President spoke on TV. They were talking about the fight for freedom that continues in the Middle East, and the President mentioned how we have to continue working for freedom around the globe.
My daughter looked at my wife and said, "But we are free."
To that, my wife looked at her and said, "Yes, but we must always continue to work for it, to fight for it."
That's why we are here tonight, talking about how we can ensure those fundamental liberties, those fundamental notions of freedom, that are enshrined in our basic form of federalism.
With that, I yield back to the gentleman from Indiana.
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Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
One of your comments reminded me of a story shared with me by a constituent several years ago. They talked about their time attending law school. They were talking about in their constitutional law course, they were starting with the Bill of Rights, going through the amendments reading cases. And when they approached the 9th and 10th Amendments of our Constitution, the law professor of this particular class said we are just going to skip the 9th and 10th Amendments because nobody really knows what these do anymore. And they went right on and beyond the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Our discussion tonight has been on the issue of federalism, has been on the issue of the powers that rightly rested with the Federal Government versus the States. And here we are dealing with a law school, a public law school where this individual was told we're going to skip the 9th and 10th Amendments because nobody knows what it means.
I believe the American people have a great interest in what the 9th and 10th Amendments mean. I know that many of our public law schools have audit opportunities, and I believe the people who are interested around this country in what students are being taught, what public law schools are teaching regarding the Constitution, regarding the 9th and 10th Amendments of this country, they have a right to audit that class and maybe they should start attending some of these law school courses to learn just exactly what our schools are teaching when it comes to federalism, the 9th and 10th Amendments, the liberty amendments of this great Nation.
I just thank you for the opportunity to share that story with the gentleman from Indiana.
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