Agency Discretion: Is It Necessary To Maintain Presidential Power?

The presidential power expanded because of the need for quick response to events and situations, such as 9/11 in addition to the fact that the constitution is not really specific on the subject.

The main breaking point between the President and Congress was in the Vietnam war. This war sparked a debate on who has the right to declare war, and who has the right to only send advisory troops. Only Congress has the right to declare war, the President can only send advisory troops to other countries. This is a very controversial topic because many people think that the President can declare war, but they have to ask the Congress first. Another convincing reason on why Congress is more powerful that the President is the fact that Congress can make laws and the President has no say. Laws are the outline of America, and they are the only thing keeping crime from all streets in all states across America. Those are only two reasons why Congress is more important to America than the President. All of these powers are stated in Article 1 of the Constitution and the powers of the President are listed in Article 2 of the Constitution. Some people still disagree, though, they think that the President has more rights than

s the head of the federal executive, the President is in charge of the vast federal bureaucracy. With the power to appoint department and agency leadership, dismiss Cabinet officials, issue executive orders, and control the budgeting process, the President can exercise considerable control over the federal bureaucracy. At the same time, the sheer size of the bureaucracy itself often undermines the ability of the President to influence and control it. By exercising bureaucratic discretion, agencies may mitigate the problems caused by the size of the bureaucracy.

Kerwin also discusses strategies chosen by various Presidents, and Congressional members to control the rulemaking/policy making powers of various agencies. He discusses everything from writing extremely specific laws that limit the powers of the agencies so that they cannot stray from the path that Congress intends for them, to threatening to reduce agency budgets if they do not comply.

However, if the President had to only stick by what was said in the Constitution, the position would be very weak, which is not the case today. The Constitution states that the President can make treaties if two-thirds of the Senate agrees, appoint members, give Congress suggestions, and be the Commander In Chief, but that was not solely the Founding Father’s intentions. According to Chief Justice Marshall,

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).

Currently, the president holds a combination of constitutional powers and statutory powers. Congress on the other hand, acts as the “leash” on the president. Therefore, Congress should be able to implement restrictions and have the power to overturn a presidential order. When it comes to the topic of how much power

To sum things up – when it comes to the bureaucracy, some of the controls that the president has the authority to use are: appoint and remove agency heads, reorganize the bureaucracy, make changes in budget proposals, reduce an agency's budget, ignore initiatives from the bureaucracy, and issue executive orders. Nonetheless, even with all of the powers and controls that the president possesses, taking into account the sheer magnitude and breadth of the bureaucracy, having complete control over it is not even feasible. In addition, even though the president is delegated the responsibility of managing the bureaucracy, when throwing the influences of Congress,

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.

Since they have a lot of power, changing or instituting policies will not be that hard. They have all the power and everything they need to change or institute a policy. The congress has electoral support from the interest group. The bureaucracy has funding and political support from congress. The interest group has low regulation and special favors from the bureaucracy. With all of these things being fulfilled, there is not really anything that could stop them.

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.

Federal bureaucrats can slow down or stall a president’s agenda by claiming lack of knowledge or by using interests groups. Bureau chiefs can claim they do not have enough information to make a decision, especially a decision involving other bureaus. By doing this, they are claiming then need more time to investigate, which slows the president’s policies. By using interest groups, bureaucrats can go through Congress. This interest groups plead to their Senators and House reps, which takes longer to have the president’s policies in place by law. They can also sabotage a president’s agenda by leaking unauthorized information. This reduces the president’s credibility and forces people to think about the effect of the new information on the policies. Bureaucrats would do these things, because they support their burea more than the president. These bureaucrats “sincerely believe in their bureau’s purpose and feel they must protect its jurisdiction, programs, and budget at all costs”(Heclo 275). Presidents and administrations chance, but the bureaus stay and bureaucrats try to stand in its best standings.

This expansion will undoubtedly result in jurisdictional overlap with other agencies. In addition, Niskansen says that Congress actually encourages agencies to bring them expansion plans and requests for increased budgets because it gives them the opportunity for more oversight of the agency.

When a president is sworn into office, he or she takes on a multitude of titles. One of the many titles the president is issued is the role of Chief in Legislator. This means that the president plays a crucial part in the legislative process or lawmaking. This title holds much authority in the eyes of Americans (Hoffman & Howard, 1317). Though this title does not give the president absolute authority, it does grant him or her strong jurisdiction in the legislature. The framers of the Constitution did not want America to be a monarchy the way they were when under the rule of England. As a result, the framers purposefully outlined the president’s limited power in the constitution, creating a democratic

Another aspect that has changed is the power the President has over policymaking. Sam Gailmard and John W. Patty say it best in their paper “Congressional Development of the Institutional Presidency: Policy Advice under Separation of Powers.” They wrote: “Presidential power over policymaking has grown vis-à-vis Congress. This changing balance power balance coincides with and partly results from the president’s informational advantages vis-à-vis Congress. Yet Congress is a willing partner and principal architect in the design of institutions that confer these very advantages. Therefore, Congress is actively complicit with the President in creating the institutions that have shifted power or, at least in relative terms, to the president,” (Gailmard and Patty, 2).