saith Jerry Pournelle (scroll down to "Code and Regs"), and he's right. Just look at Washington today.
But he misses one salient point: Delegation of legislative powers to regulators by legislators spreads the blame around and makes targeting a given legislator for his vote, say, "to raise taxes" or "to close polluting coal power plants", a fuzzy proposition -- at least on the surface. If the tax was levied by the IRS by regulation, or the power plants are going to have to close because the EPA have issued a very tight standard for coal emissions, all the legislator has to do is point out the "discretion of the Secretary" language in the enabling act, and tell you that the person you need to be angry at is the Secretary.
The key is to understand that the Secretary would not have that power if the legislator hadn't given it away. That's when the fuzziness goes away and you can zero in on the real culprit.
