Last night, the House passed the “Presidential Efficiency and Streamlining Act” by a vote of 261-116 it now awaits President Obama’s signature. This will reduce the number of Presidential appointees requiring Senate confirmation. According to Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller:

Presidential appointees that would no longer require Senate confirmation under the legislation include the treasurer of the United States and the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

I bet tax challenged Tim Geithner wished this was the case during his confirmation process.

As the Heritage Foundation points out:

the Appointments Clause is ‘among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme’ and ‘is a bulwark against one branch aggrandizing its power at the expense of another branch.’

The Heritage Foundation also notes:

It does not appear that the sponsors of S. 679 have determined that each of the offices the bill converts from appointments made by the President with Senate consent to appointments made by the President alone is an office of little or no authority or consequence. Instead, it appears that the principal sponsors simply concluded that the Senate is too slow in performing its duty to consider and consent (or not) to presidential nominations and hope to accelerate the Senate process by simply reducing the number of such nominations the President must make.

For those who have asked; “Is Congress stupid?”

You have your answer.

Now, I’m going to go take some aspirin.

Why bother believing in the Constitution when Congress is willing to throw it away?