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The Reign of Bush-Obama and their Power Essay

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Many argue that the most powerful branch in government is the Executive Branch. The President is considered as the most influential and the most important position in the U.S. government. However, the powers granted to Presidents and the prerogative they have exerted are not listed in the Constitution but instead have been adapted and expanded upon by each President. Although the Constitution does not define the powers of the President, it has defined Presidential powers in terms of peace, war, and emergency. A recent expansion of Presidential power, exerted by Bush and then Obama was this “War on Terror (WOT)”. President Barack Obama and his predecessor President George W. Bush have both expanded the powers of the President through the …show more content…

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, A Constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. (McCulloch V. Maryland) Basically, this 1819 court case, McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice Marshall argues that if the Constitution accounted for every single power for every position, the common people would not have understood it because it would have been too large and the meaning would have been lost in transition. In addition, the Constitution, according to Marshall should be like a “great outline”, where small powers are given to the President, and that these outlines should have the important

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