On the recordJanuary 6, 2011
It used to be a very boring place to be a Congressman down here because there were almost no laws on the books. The Federal laws, to begin with, in terms of laws about right and wrong, were, one of them was a law against piracy on the high seas. Another one was against counterfeiting. Another one was a law against espionage. Those three laws were the main laws on the books federally. And what did they have in common? Well, just exactly your point. Piracy, counterfeiting and espionage against our country were against the general welfare. They were laws that affected everything. So laws against murder and rape and stealing and all that kind of stuff were all State laws because the States made all those laws. So you had a very limited jurisdiction federally. And now, as you say, we've got all of these different sorts of creeping red tape which keep costing. In an insidious way, everybody's cost of living keeps slipping up, but you don't really know why, who's nibbling all the money out of your wallet.
