Should The Government Have Too Much Power Essay

Most of the specifications for the executive branch in the Constitution, other than how he is to be elected, have to deal with the interactions between Congress and the President. The president can (fill in the blank) but only if (this part) of Congress approves. The powers of the president have been interpreted widely so that he has more power than I believe the Framers intended. They wanted him to be able to check Congress with veto power and be the head of the military. However, I think that presidents nowadays have too much power. They are active in trying force their policy agenda through Congress, manage foreign relations, and act as the administrative head of the entire nation. The textbook lays it out well in, "The vast size of the executive branch and the number and complexity of decisions that must be made each day pose a challenge for the White House.” (316) In order to deal with the stresses put on the executive branch, there are thousands of employees that work to give the president the information that he needs to make decisions. He has advisors, cabinet members, legislative liaisons; the list goes on and on, but he is the person who actually gets to make all of the choices. The President is limited in some ways and given more power in other ways by the structure laid out for him in the Constitution, and evolved to be what it is now.

In the article, “Unilateral Action and Presidential Power: A Theory,” Terry M. Moe and William G. Howell, two political science instructors from Stanford University, investigate a source of presidential power, which is the president’s capability to act individually and make his own law, that has been unacknowledged yet essential to presidential leadership that it defines how the modern presidency is distinctively modern. The authors’ purpose in the article is to outline a theory of this feature of presidential power by arguing that the president’s powers of unilateral action, which is developed from the ambiguity of the contract, are strengths in American politics since they are not mentioned in the constitution. They also claim that presidents push the ambiguity of the contract to make their powers grow and that Congress and the courts would not be able to stop them (Moe and Howell, 1999, p. 1-3).

Presidential power refers to the amount of power which the president has. The constraints to this power are time, information and bureaucracy mostly due to the checks and balances system.

So, why does it take so long time for the two branches to agree? Because: Politics.

Why is government necessary? In the words of Alexander Hamilton, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint” (Federalist No. 15 137). Men have a sin nature and must have an authority set in place to keep them from falling into anarchy. America has federal and state governments with a system of checks and balances for exactly this reason, but one sector of the government has overstepped the bounds that were set for it in this country’s infancy. In order to answer the question of whether more power should be put into the hands of the federal or state government, three things must be considered: the history of state’s rights in America, the differing types of government, and the constitution itself.

In his study The New Imperial Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power after Watergate, Andrew Rudalevige examines the American presidency and how it has changed over time. First off what is an Imperial Presidency? An imperial presidency is a term that was coined around the 1960s by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States. In the beginning of the book Rudalevige states, “Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. had affixed an enduring adjective to the Nixon Presidency: Imperial. This didn’t mean that the president literally had become emperor but suggested the occupant in office exercised more absolute power.”

The Constitutional framers would never have believed how much power the President of the United States has obtained to this present day. Based off their work, it seems as if the framers expected Congress to have the vast majority of power. It is true that Congress still has maintained some of their power; yet, as a collective society we tend to place our sole interest on the president and magnify on all his accomplishments and especially on all his losses (sometimes even blaming him for events that are out of his jurisdiction). Nonetheless, the president has gained quite a remarkable amount of power over the years and it is highly noticeable when analyzing differences in the institutions, the policies, and culturally.

Throughout the history of the U.S.A, power has always been very influential when it comes to how a nation is ruled. In addition, power- described as strength, force, and the ability to influence events- has and continues to be very important to the government and the citizens who live under that government. For instance, this was seen in the Revolutionary War, in which American colonists fought against the British in order to have the right and power to be independent. Therefore, after the Revolutionary War, American colonists were no longer British citizens or loyal to the king so, they were able to become a new independent nation. This new nation went through many political, social and economic transitions as it tried to establish a new government.

As a citizen of the United States of America it is easy to get caught up with your day to day life and not realize everything going on around you. If you sit back and think about all the ways government affects you, you will be amazed. Let’s discuss our different levels of government, our federalist style of government, the pros and cons associated with our federalist style, the way government affects you daily, the private sector, as well as what things our government is involved in I feel is unnecessary.

In the admittedly short life time of the Presidential branch its occupants have taken massive strides in empowering and strengthening their office. At times a case could be made that the executive has aspired to too much; threating essential American political values, such is the case of President Franklin Roosevelt who secured a third term of office ignoring precedent and tradition. However, evidence would suggest that for any significant step a president takes towards increasing their power; often results in an equal and opposite reaction. That is not to say that our presidents are weak, in actuality we see that our presidents have significantly increased their power to wage war

In this paper we will compare the formal and informal powers if the President and we will explore how and why the Presidential powers have increased over time. The history of the Presidency is an account of aggrandizement; one envisions, today, a President with far reaching power, however, when looking at the Constitution alone we find a President with significant limits. Is the President of the United States the most powerful person in the world or merely a helpless giant?

Presidents of the United States of America have been around since the country became it’s own. Each president is given certain responsibilities and rights. Presidential power is listed in the Constitution but since then, there’s been room for more responsibilities to come into play. The powers exercised in the modern world surpass those included in the Constitution. Today, the president has a number of offices and departments serving under him. These institutions help keep the government together and everything running smoothly. The presidents rely on a number of other things. Some include elections, political parties, interest groups, the media, and public opinion. There are different kinds of powers granted to the president. While some

In the 1900s - 1940s the federal government enacted many new policies and acts that caused the growth of their power. In this time, the expansion of the government's power proved to be more beneficial than harmful to the majority of American lives.

Presidential power has increased immensely over recent years and little is being done in an attempt to restore the original intent of the Constitution. There are multiple factors that affect this, including the executive orders of presidents, the Constitution giving an unequal distribution of power between the executive and legislative branch, the failure to use checks and balances, and the ineffectiveness of Congress. With the lack of congressional involvement in legislative decisions, the president has the ability to take matters in their own hands.

Although it is often said that the President of the United States holds the most powerful office in the world, this does not mean that he is able to decide very much for himself. The American Constitution, which was adapted in 1789, clearly states the Separation of Powers. Thus, the president makes up only one third of the government, namely the executive branch. He is also controlled by a complex system of checks and balances, which makes sure that he (or any of the other branches, for that matter) does not become too powerful. We will now have a look at the different problems which may be facing a recently elected president, and then discuss to what extent his powers are important.