[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5460-5461]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE ENUMERATED POWERS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss and to support the 
Enumerated Powers Act introduced by Congressman Shadegg. The Enumerated 
Powers Act is most important to protect the tenth amendment. We 
understand that with the word ``federalism.''
  People perhaps, though, are not so aware of where the concept of 
federalism originally came from. They think some brilliant founders got 
together in Philadelphia in 1789 and came up with the idea of 
federalism, but, in fact, that is not quite true.
  The concept of federalism dates way, way back to 18 years after the 
arrival of the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Colony. It goes to the time 
when the State of Connecticut was being founded and a great preacher by 
the name of Hooker preached a series of sermons outlining how the 
government in Connecticut should be structured. Those sermons resulted 
in what was called then the ``Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.'' And 
what it said was that Hartford had certain enumerated powers and of 
anything not specifically enumerated for Hartford to handle, the other 
towns would have those powers.
  So it was that we started with the idea of federalism, that is, that 
there is only specific power granted to the central organizing 
authority, in this case the U.S. Constitution.

                              {time}  1745

  Now, the Enumerated Powers Act requires that all bills introduced in 
the U.S. Congress include a statement setting forth the specific 
constitutional authority under which the law is being enacted. It 
would, of course, enforce, then, the reexamination of the proper role 
of the national government and it will fundamentally alter the ever-
expanding reach of the Federal Government. The Enumerated Powers Act 
requires scrutiny of the Federal Government to slow this reach, 
particularly in the sense that it will require that there be a properly 
cited constitutional authority to precede the legislation proposed.
  Now, the Constitution gives the Federal Government only 18 specific 
enumerated powers. But ignoring the principles of Federalism in the 
Constitution, starting with FDR and continuing through LBJ's Great 
Society right down to the modern day, Congresses have displayed a 
willingness to ignore the 10th Amendment in order to greatly expand the 
Federal Government.
  The size and scope of the national government has exploded over the 
last seven decades. Congress has created ineffective costly programs, 
incredible annual deficits and a huge debt exceeding $7 trillion that 
will be passed only to our children and grandchildren. State and local 
governments are now dependent upon the Federal Government for funding, 
and the Feds now tamper with issues that are best understood by States 
and localities, with education and welfare reform being two cases in 
point.
  I believe that Ronald Reagan had it right: ``I have always felt that 
the nine

[[Page 5461]]

most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the 
government and I'm here to help.'''
  We need to uphold the entire Constitution, not just the parts we 
choose to use for our own ends.

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