On http://www.heritage.org I found a great article and I wanted to share it with you over the next few days. Mike Kelsey in his article “2011 in Review: Who’s Been Naughty, Who’s Been Nice?,” December 30, 2011 wrote:
Americans are blessed to have inherited a constitutional republic. If we are to keep it, we must vigilantly preserve the Constitution upon which it stands. As 2011 draws to a close, we made a list (and checked it twice!) of the year’s most important constitutional trends.
Naughty: Runaway Bureaucrats
Despite the country’s woes, bureaucrats had no qualms about burdening an already struggling economy with billions of dollars of (sometimes bizarre) regulations. Public outcry put an end to a few of the most ridiculous regulation such as the “Christmas tree tax.” But since bureaucrats are unelected and uncountable to Congress, they were largely undeterred. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, usurped Congress’s legislative authority and issued new vehicle fuel-efficiency standards that (by its own estimates) will cost the economy $8.5 billion per year and raise the price of cars by at least $2,000. Just what we need to help the economy.
Nice: Congress tries to rein in Bureaucrats
This year Congress finally began to take practical steps to regain control of the legislative process. Most importantly, the House passed the REINS Act and the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would give Congress much needed authority to restrain the excesses of unaccountable bureaucrats. Although these bills are unlikely to pass the Senate, they have succeeded in turning public scrutiny upon the nation’s regulatory agencies and—most importantly—in creating a solid precedent for future reform efforts.
The Daily Hatch 