> As a practical matter I'm not sure Congress could do all the rule making that the executive branch does. At least not as it is currently organized. It just do

> As a practical matter I'm not sure Congress could do all the rule making that the executive branch does. At least not as it is currently organized. It just doesn't have the institutional capacity. But one could imagine a government with legislative agencies paralleling the executive agencies responsible for rulemaking with oversight / ratification done by congress. I agree with you that Congress doesn't have the capacity to make all the rules as needed by the current laws. My general lean is towards smaller government, so my knee-jerk reaction is that it means the government is trying to do too much, or to do things too quickly. We have some poorly thought-out legislation (PATRIOT act, for example) and it's fairly often that laws are passed without a good understanding of how they will actually work (e.g., the "we need to pass it so we can see what's in it" comments about the Healthcare reform). Not trying to do as much and/or taking a slower, more thoughtful approach would be good.