US Capitol Building in Washington DC

The Founding Fathers set up Congress as the most powerful of the three branches. Per the U.S. Constitution, Congress possesses “all legislative power.” This includes the most fundamental tools of governance and state-building, such as laying and collecting taxes, coining money and regulating its value and deciding what persons may join the nation as citizens. The monarchs of old Europe might have been able to wage war willy-nilly, but in America, the Founders permitted the legislature alone to “raise and support armies,” “provide and maintain a navy” and “declare war.”

Yet over the past century, Congress has diminished in power…(read more at the R Street Institute Blog)