Spineless Dumbed Down Congressmen Gave Away Their Power. Can Ryan Get It Back?

[From article]
The Affordable Care Act, for example, isn’t so much a piece of legislation as a letter of marque for the Health and Human Services.
[. . .]
This is just one example of how Congress routinely vests legislative power in the executive branch.
[. . .]
The Constitution says only Congress can levy taxes. The founders had this crazy idea called “no taxation without representation.” And yet, numerous agencies are self-funding, raising money without having to worry about Congress’ power of the purse.
[. . .]
These agencies are, furthermore, often unaccountable to the judicial branch. Bureaucrats have their own administrative courts, which routinely deny traditional due process to plaintiffs.
The executive branch was never supposed to be this powerful. Richard Neustadt famously wrote in “Presidential Power” that the presidency is an inherently weak office and therefore the president’s chief power is “persuasion.”
[. . .]
President Obama has certainly tried to do that. But it’s turned out that his powers of persuasion have been greatly exaggerated, particularly in this age of polarization.
Unable to coax the country in his direction, Obama has relied on his beloved “pen and phone” strategy — that is, signing executive orders — often to the cheers of congressional Democrats apparently eager to celebrate their institutional gelding.
[. . .]
Clawing back the legislative function can’t be done overnight and requires a cultural transformation of Congress itself.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/20/can-paul-ryan-rescue-congress-from-irrelevance/

Can Paul Ryan rescue Congress from irrelevance?
By Jonah Goldberg
New York Post
January 20, 2016 | 1:01pm

White House Fails To Protect US Civilians From Terrorism

The primary purpose of the federal governments was to provide for the common defense. Instead it collects taxes to make education policy, to force misguided standards on use of minerals and land, and many other activities outsides of the purview of the US Constitution which mandates those are matters for the states. Yet it fails to provide safety for civilians. 

[From article]
Every single error made on the federal level concerning terror since the first inauguration of Barack Obama came to a head, from encouraging Muslim immigration to enabling terrorists to enter the country to crippling security investigations in the name of PC.
The federal government has unilaterally broken a basic element of the social contract -- that the citizen will give up private use of violence and support the government in exchange for protection.
[. . .]
Both the military and police have given up any pretense of attempting to control Islamic terrorism. Homeland Defense was founded to create a new basis for a public employee’s union. It fulfills that role admirably. It does nothing else.
[. . .]



Obama refuses to defend Americans while at the same time adding more killers to the brew.
[. . .]
It explains why the borders have not been closed, why Jihadi mosques are still in operation, why Moslem Brotherhood operatives remain active within the government itself. The Muslims are the New Proletariat, the left’s ideological pets. The PC template has been shifted from blacks and placed right over the Muslim Jihadis, because they are Muslim Jihadis.
[. . .]
We can take this as whimpering products of postmodernism, curled into fetal balls as we descend in freefall, so many Woody Allens whining for somebody to do something as we await the final bullet. Or we can act as Americans always acted when government has let them down. We can refuse to be victims.
How do we respond to the Muslim threat? With knowledge and action.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/the_federal_failure_to_counter_jihad.html

January 11, 2016
The Federal Failure to Counter Jihad
By J.R. Dunn

Government Power Expanding

[From article]
The expansion of the federal regulatory sweep via the Clean Water Act would have toxic consequences across the board. America would be less America and more Washington.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/061814-705320-epa-army-corps-of-engineers-expand-regulation-reach-through-clean-water-act.htm?p=full

Washington Wants To Regulate ... Everything
Posted 06:50 PM ET

Massachusetts Police Merge Jurisdiction, Usurp Legislative Power

[From article]
the Massachusetts Interagency Mutual Aid Agreement, which will empower on-duty police officers in one jurisdiction to respond to public safety emergencies in other participating jurisdictions.
[. . .]
"Major events in Massachusetts and elsewhere have highlighted the need for police departments to work together more effectively, and these events have shown that we are indeed more effective when we work together," said Bedford Police Chief Robert Bongiorno
[. . .]
Cambridge has not signed the agreement at this time.

Is there a problem with the Massachusetts State Police? Who needs local police chiefs? Why not dress all police in the same uniform and make them answerable to one chief of police? And why is the Transit police, the MBTA officers, the constables, and the Harvard University campus police not included? 

http://belmont.wickedlocal.com/article/20140318/NEWS/140316506

Majority of Middlesex police chiefs sign mutual aid agreement
The Middlesex County Chiefs of Police Association has signed the Massachusetts Interagency Mutual Aid Agreement, which will empower on-duty police officers in one jurisdiction to respond to public safety emergencies in other participating jurisdictions.
Posted Mar. 18, 2014 @ 11:02 am
Updated at 11:45 AM

Bureaucrat Usurps Congressional Authority Contrary to US Constitution

It is curious that for wasting taxpayer funds on psychiatric treatment under the parity delusion, the human services industrial complex (MA State Rep. Marie Parente's term) means that psychiatric care is paid for the same as physical medical care. For which medical illnesses do people lose their Second Amendment rights? And for which physical illnesses do police and prosecutors describe the person as having a history of a physical illness as they do with persons accused of mental illness?

In his informative book published in 1975 Thinking About Crime, James Q. Wilson, Harvard University Professor of Government said, "Explaining human behavior is a worthwhile endeavor, indeed, for intellectuals it is among the most worthwhile. Those who search for such explanations need not justify their activity by its social utility or its policy implications. Unfortunately, neither intellectuals nor policy makers always understand this. If the government becomes alarmed about crime, it assumes that those who have studied it most deeply can contribute most fully to its solution. Criminologists have rarely sought to show statesmen the error of this assumption." 

The same can be said about psychiatrists, who testify in court and make predictions about the future. They study human behavior more than others. But it does not give them any special knowledge as to why or if people will repeat that behavior. Psychiatrists testify before legislatures and urge them to fund psychiatric treatment making their personal opinions into public policy. That is worthwhile for the psychiatric industry, and the drug industry. It is an enormous waste of taxpayer funds. In this case once again unelected bureaucrats make decisions about funding, which violates the Constitution. Law restricts the authority to make spending decisions to Congress, the House of Representatives. 

The power of the U.S. Congress to tax and spend for the General Welfare is granted under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." That includes not funding laws passed by the Congress. In addition some spending is restricted to state legislatures by the Tenth Amendment. For an unelected bureaucrat to dictate what money is spent is a clear violation of that clause.

[From article]
On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced new regulations mandating health insurers cover mental and behavioral health to the same extent they cover physical health care.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2013/11/11/new-mental-health-mandate-will-make-

obamacare-more-expensive-increase-fraud-and-canceled-policies/
11/11/2013 @ 10:22AM
New Mental Health Mandate Will Make Obamacare More Expensive, Increase Fraud And Canceled Policies

Beyond Rent Control

Beyond Rent Control

[This letter was published in The New York Times on November 28, 1994]

To the Editor:

Your Nov. 22 article about the Massachusetts referendum on the issue of rent control reports inaccurately the outcome of the vote: "Only Boston, Brookline and Cambridge voted -- in large numbers -- to keep rent control legal. The rest of the state voted to abolish it."

At least New Bedford, Springfield and Fall River also voted to let municipalities impose rent control.

Just as the Federal Government takes power from states contrary to the 10th Amendment, states are usurping local powers. It is typical of the arbitrary application of legal doctrine that is widespread in the land.

ROY BERCAW Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 23, 1994