Congress In Crisis
The United States Congress is not in any crisis from a lack of power, and indeed since the deteriorating power of the presidency has prevented 'imperial Presidents', Congress has made Presidents seem less 'imperial' than 'impotent'. To assess the power and effectiveness of Congress, one must look at the four major roles that Congress plays in the United States. Although inevitably checked and balanced, there is no question of the founding fathers intent, when framing the constitution, they had aimed to enumerate the powers of Congress so as to create a dominant branch of government.The United States, similar to Britain is a representative democracy, ergo the name of the Lower House in Congress; the House of Representatives with its four-hundred and thirty-five members based on state delegations, dependant on the population of the represented state. Much like constituency MP's in Britain each member of Congress represents a certain district of a state. The power of the House of Representatives is limited due to "a habitual recollection of their dependence on the people". Representatives are elected every two years, as this term is so short a Congressman can not risk perusing or pressuring for unfavourable legislation or engag
Congress has both a population determined representatives, as according to the original Virginia Plan of 1783, and an equally representative Upper House as decided with the Connecticut Compromise, to please smaller and previously less represented states. The composition of Congress being such permits legitimation, by means of a public mandate, as is the case in most representative democracies, this mandate allows Congress to be the law-making body of the American government. Due to the electorates officially chosen representatives making law, the public gives indirect consent for the laws and therefore is governed by them. Congress has also the 'power of the purse', the power to appropriate money, although the President is largely responsible for leading the policy agenda, including the budget, Congress have powers to demand a balanced budget. They have right to refuse borrowing, deny tax changes, or simply not appropriate monies towards what the President dictated. This power is important for both foreign and domestic affairs, and stems from the constitution which states that only Congress "can lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises" [A1, S8], and "no money may be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law" [A1, S9]. Using this power Congress often attempts to pursue its own policy agenda, with regards to public spending, by attaching 'riders', to an appropriations bill, this is usually at the more specific level of appropriations, assigning specific funds to a cause or project. These 'riders' are an ultimatum for the President, with Congress refusing to pass appropriations for a section of the budget if the President does not allow funds for their own policy agenda. Via these means Congress has the power, in foreign affairs, to prevent wars or other military activities in other countries, which inevitably requ
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1259
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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