Here’s U.S. Senator Mike Lee writing again at The Daily Signal (he also wrote on the topic here):
The federal government is broken, and congressional weakness is to blame.
The authors of the Constitution made Congress the most powerful of the federal government’s three co-equal branches. Congress was designed both as the most powerful and the most accountable to the people.
Consent of the governed in a republic depends on transparent policymaking by representative institutions. Congress’ embrace of this mandate is part of what has made America successful and exceptional.
But if there is one thing politicians of every party and ideology agree on, it’s that hard work and accountability are inconvenient.
And so, over the course of the twentieth century, and accelerating in the twenty-first, Congress has handed many of its constitutional responsibilities to the Executive Branch.
Increasingly harmful federal laws are increasingly written by people who never stand for election, via processes contrary to those provided for in the Constitution and, indeed, with the explicit purpose of excluding the American people from their government and shielding policymakers from popular accountability.
Executive overreach is an enormous problem—but it’s a problem largely of Congress’ own making.
Under Houses, Senates, presidents, and Supreme Courts of every partisan combination, Congress has recast itself as the backseat driver of American politics.
Today, the vast majority of federal “laws”—upwards of 95 percent—are not passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president; they are imposed unilaterally by unelected bureaucrats in the Executive Branch.
At the same time, Congress’ budget process has almost entirely broken down. Most federal spending has been put on auto-pilot, authorized without a vote. Meanwhile, fiscal oversight, deliberation, and reform are a bipartisan charade.
Read more: The Daily Signal
Image credit: www.westernjournalism.com.
