Last Monday, Heritage.org posted an article about Congress. It wasn’t the usual article blaming Congress for the various ills of the country–it was an article noting the declining power of Congress–they’re giving their power away!
The article cites a number of examples:
Consider several of the items Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus listed in a recent column headlined, “Losing the art of legislating as John Dingell retires”:
- Clean Air: Lawmakers are happy to pass policymaking about carbon dioxide to the EPA.
- Education Reform: Lawmakers allow the Obama Administration to offer waivers to replace the Congressionally-passed No Child Left Behind with Common Core.
- Health Care: Lawmakers enacted Obamacare, but the bill was more aspiration than law. Much of the actual policy is being crafted by the Department of Health and Human Services. For his part, President Obama has felt free to issue waivers at will.
- Telecommunications: The FCC is aggressively trying to expand its domain. It recently floated a plan to put observers in newsrooms, even those of newspapers and Web sites (which the agency doesn’t even regulate).
This is not how our government is supposed to work–it is rule by agencies in the executive branch–not three branches of government balancing each other.