Under our Constitution, there are three branches of government–Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Each branch has specific duties. The legislative branch is supposed to make the laws. The legislative branch is held accountable for the laws they make by the election process–the House of Representatives every two years, the Senate every six years. The Founding Fathers did not want an elected Senate–they wanted Senators appointed by the states to make sure the Senators represented their home states. The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, began the direct election of Senators. Currently, most of our laws are not laws–they are regulations created by unelected bureaucrats. That was never the intention of the Founding Fathers. It seems as though Congress may be getting ready to reclaim its responsibility.
On May 12, The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) reported the following:
While President Donald Trump has made reining in the unelected federal bureaucracy a top priority of his second term, the Republican Congress has thus far largely failed to get in on the action. But that could be set to change with a new bill that strikes at the heart of the Deep State and runaway executive power.
The Regulations From the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act , which Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced in the Senate earlier this year (Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) also introduced a companion version in the House)(H.R.3058) requires that all federal regulations with an economic impact greater than $100 million be passed through Congress. As Politico put it, the REINS Act “would turn Congress into a gatekeeper for certain major rules and allow lawmakers to roll back countless regulations for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.” The outlet further described the legislation as a “rule-busting bill” and “rule-shredding proposal.”
While Democrats like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois have criticized the bill as a “war on regulations” (a criticism that will no doubt read as high praise to conservatives), Republicans argue the REINS Act is a long-overdue check on the power of the unelected bureaucracy to impose regulations that have an enormous impact on the economy. “For those who say it would make a radical change, a radical departure from the status quo of rulemaking, I’d say, ‘Thank heaven above for that,’” Lee said.
The article concludes:
The urgency of addressing regulatory burdens is further highlighted in a 2024 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The conservative think tank found that regulations under the Biden-Harris administration imposed $15,000 in annual costs on the average American household. That’s a serious number, particularly when the median household income is only $80,000 per year.
Congress has an opportunity to lower costs for American consumers and fuel an economic boom by passing the REINS Act – it should seize the chance now.
It would be really great if Congress would pass this bill.