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Congress

I. Founders’ Intentions1. ________________________________2. Separation of lawmaking power from executive3. Bicameralism balances __________________

House – more connected to people (2 yr term)Senate – allows for independent thinking __________________

Constitutional PowersArticle I, Section 8

To lay and collect __________________ To borrow money To regulate commerce (states and foreign) To establish rules for naturalization To coin money To create courts (except Supreme Court) To declare war To raise and support an army and navy Evolution of Powers

Elastic clause has __________________ Oversight of budget – can __________________the fed.

budget prepared by executive branch Appropriations – set amount of money made available for

various activity in a __________________ Investigation – Congress can launch investigations

(__________________, Clinton-Lewinski hearings, Steroids in baseball)

Important DifferencesHouse: The People’s Body

435 members 2 year term 7 year citizen Initiate _____________________________________ Elects the President if no majority in the Electoral College Revenue bills Strict debate rules

Senate: The August Body, Upper House, 100 members 6 year term 9 year citizen Tries impeachment, convicts with 2/3 vote Elects the VP if no majority vote Approve __________________ Approve treaties Loose debate rules

Use space below for notes. I will come around and check to see if you added notes for points.

House• The people’s body• Popular democracy• Directly elected, no one has ever been

appointed to this body,• Short terms, responsive to the people• Modeled after the House of Commons,

Plebeians• Only body that represented majoritarian

democracy in the original ConstitutionSenate

• Upper House• “the house that never dies.” staggered

elections• a check on the popularly elected house• Represents the states, federalism• “The world's greatest deliberative body.”• The framers envisioned the Senate as a

body of statesmen who make decisions based on experience and wisdom

• Represent the elite, the aristocracy• The length of the term is supposed to

insulate senators from public opinion and allow them to act independently.

• Modeled after the House of Lords, the Founders wanted an aristocratic Senate in

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II. Who’s in Congress?110 th Congress (2007-2008) 85% __________________85% White40% Lawyers

109 th Congress (2005-2006) 29 accused of spousal abuse 7 have been arrested for fraud 19 arrested for writing bad checks 117 have bankrupted at least __________________ 8 have been arrested for shoplifting In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving

Florida’s US Senators Marco Rubio (R) & ______________________

Florida's 24th congressional district Distribution

91.08% urban, 8.92% rural Population (2000) __________________ Median income $43,954

Ethnicity 80.0% White, 6.3% Black, 2.0% Asian, 9.8% Hispanic, 0.3% Native American, 0.2% other

Voter Registration As of October 2010: Republicans: __________________ Democrats: 179,342 (36.76%) Others: 114,655 (23.50%)

Representative, Party, Years in Congress Tom Feeney Republican January 3, 2003 – January 3,

2009 Suzanne ____________ Democratic January 3, 2009 –

January 3, 2011 _______________ Republican January 3, 2011- 2013 Florida’s New 6th Congressional District Republican Ron

_________________________________

Leadership

Majority party controls the most significant leadership positionsHouse - Speaker __________________

Allows people to speak on floor Assigns bills to committees Influences which bills are brought to a vote Appoints members of special and select committees

Senate – __________________ Schedules Senate business

style without having a natural aristocracy

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Prioritizes bills House Leadership Senate Leadership

III. Elections House members directly elected every 2 years Senators directly elected after __________________ Elections every 6 years, staggered so 1/3 are up for election

every __________________Why do incumbents win most elections, especially in the House?Power of Incumbency

Name ____________________________________ Access to media to shape and frame issues Franking Privilege: __________________ Fundraising --More Campaign contributions and PAC $$

therefore more effective at fundraising Casework: working on issues for constituents in state or

district—creates more loyalty and word of mouth support Pork and Earmarks: Spending bills for ―pet projects‖ in

congressional districts or states makes voters in their district happy, but those NOT in their district see it as a waste of $$.

Gerrymandering in Congressional districts creating ―safe districts‖ as opposed to marginal __________________

Representation The 435 members (fixed number since 1911) of the House

are __________________to each state based on population Every 10 years, the __________________tells the

government how many representatives each state gets - ---2010 censes – allotted 27 congressional seats to FL – 2 more than the previous census –27+2 Senate = 29 electoral votes

Baker v. Carr (1962): Court decided that apportionment and redistricting was a justifiable issue. Reynolds v. Sims (1964): Ordered state legislative districts to be as near equal as possible in population in__________________ __________________

Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) : Congressional Districts must be relatively equal in population in order to preserve ―one man, one vote‖ —NO __________________–DOES NOT apply to Senate since the Constitution forbids proportional representation in the SENATE.

Districts also must be __________________

Redistricting and Gerrymandering After States are told how many congressional districts they

have been apportioned, the State Legislature is in charge of drawing new districts that contain roughly the same number of people.

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•Gerrymandering occurs when the party in charge of the state government draws the congressional lines in a manner that favors individual members of their political party, and incumbent, or a specific group of people.

Basically, gerrymandering allows __________________ ____________________________________

Gerrymandering can also be racial in that it can be used to to the create majority-minority districts Shaw v. Reno (1993), Miller v. Johnson (1995): Redistricting based on race as the predominant factor is illegal but can be done in some cases if it meets the standard of strict scrutiny (highest standard)

In most cases, racial gerrymandering is __________________ (especially if done to dilute voting power of minorities) but race can be a factor in the process if it’s done so in order to provide fair __________________

What is the difference between redistricting and reapportionment?_______________________________________

Bush v. Vera (1996) Texas Congressional District #30 that did not meet the

court‘s strict scrutiny standard on race since it was obvious according to the court that race was the __________________factor and not simply one of many factors (such as keeping communities intact, compactness of a district, contiguity of a district, etc.

IV. How A Bill Becomes a LawStep 1 – Introduce BillIntroduced in Senate or House __________________Single or __________________can introduce billStep 2 - Committee

1. Bill is assigned to a particular __________________in its category (Ex. Tax bill – Ways and Means Committee, Farm bill – Agriculture Committee)

2. Bill is then placed in sub-committee3. Bills are debated and __________________4. Most bills die in committee, committee can vote to

“report out” a billStep 3–Rules CommitteeBefore bill can go to floor in House, it must first set time limits and amendment regulations.Closed rule – sets time limits, restricts amendmentsOpen rule – __________________Restrictive rule – permits some amendmentsStep 4 – Floor DebateSenate DebateLess formal, no speaking limitFilibuster – practice of __________________Cloture – 3/5 of the __________________House Debate

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More formal, no filibuster, strict rules

Holds & Filibusters Holds An informal practice by which a Senator informs the

Majority leader that he does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration done prior to filibuster

Filibuster: endless debate to block a floor vote on a bill Neither Holds nor Filibusters are in the _______________,

but rather in the rules of the Senate that allows Extended Debate

These can be used on legislation as well as any senatorial confirmation, such as a ___________________________

Strom Thurmond (D/R-SC) set a record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Procedural Filibuster: Senate Rule 22 permits filibusters in which actual

continuous floor speeches are not required, although the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses.

Filibuster can be ended by a cloture vote _____________ The Senate itself at the start of its session for a term must

agree to amend its Parliamentary rules to get rid of the Filibuster

Step 5 - VotingMajority passes

If the bill passes, it must go through the same process in the opposite chamber with a sponsor

If the bill passes one house and fails the other, it must start over

If the Senate and House cannot come to agreement over two versions, it goes to ______________________________ to fix it and resubmit the bill

Logrolling (Horse-trading)• Logrolling is the trading of favors, or ________________,

such as vote trading by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member

Presidential Action Sign – bill becomes law Veto – bill returns to origin Override – ________vote in both houses can override veto Pocket Veto – President has __________________to act on

a piece of legislation. If he receives the bill within 10 days

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of the end of the Congressional session, and doesn’t sign, it dies

V. Committees and Subcommittees Most real work happens here Bills are passed, changed, ignored, or killed

Types of CommitteesStanding committee – handle bills in different__________________(ex. Appropriations, Agriculture, Armed Services, Science, etc.) – most important and have been “standing” (existing) for a long timeSelect committee – formed for specific purposes and usually temporary – run investigations (ex. Aging, __________________Types of CommitteesJoint committee – consist of both House and Senate memberssimilar in purpose to Select committee Meant to draw attention to issuesConference committee – consist of both House reps and Senatorsformed to hammer out differences between House and Senate versions of __________________

Committee Membership Controlled by majority party, committee membership

divided __________________Committee Chairman

Senior member of committee Controls membership and debate Work of Committees 11,000 bills introduced yearly, __________________

Committees can… Report out favorably/unfavorably Pigeonholed /table (do not discuss) Amend / “mark up” (__________________

Congressional Caucuses Groupings of members pushing for similar interests Ex. – Sunbelt, Northeast-Midwest, Congressional Black,

Women’s, Democratic Study Group, __________________

How can we fix Congress?VI. Reforming Congress

Impose term limits (but Supreme Court ruled states cannot constitutionally impose term limits on Congress -__________________

Eliminate filibuster? Or reduce cloture vote? Reducing power and perks (Gifts, Reduce Franking –the

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ability to mail for free) Get rid of tradition of __________________

__________________ Reduce the number of committees and assignments to slow

pace and allow reasoned consideration of bills Downsize staff sizes (might force congressmen to be a

greater part of legislation or may have the staff rely more on executive agencies?)

Term-limits Debate

No current limit on how many terms members of Congress can serve

1. Some argue this has weakened popular control of Congress, reps might be __________________

2. Some argue most experienced reps have the expertise to bring home more __________________ (pork, riders, etc.)

Line Item Veto• Idea that the president should be able to veto parts of a

bill (earmarks) rather than the __________________• Many governors possess this power• 1996 Republican Congress passed law allowing Clinton the

Line-Item veto

Absurd Pork/Earmarks? 1985-2008 $107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail. $1.2 million to study the breeding habits of the woodchuck. $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud. $84,000 to find out why people fall in love. $1 million to study why people don't ride bikes to work. $19 million to examine gas emissions from cow flatulence. $144,000 to see if pigeons follow human economic laws. $15,000 to study the cause of rudeness on tennis courts and examine

smiling patterns in bowling alleys. $219,000 to teach college students how to watch television. $2 million to construct an ancient Hawaiian canoe. $160,000 to study if you can hex an opponent by drawing an X on his

chest. $800,000 for a restroom on Mt. McKinley. $100,000 to study how to avoid falling spacecraft. $225 million earmarked for the infamous

____________________________________What % of pork makes up the actual budget? ________

• 1998 the Supreme Court ruled it UNCONSTITUTIONAL in Clinton v. City of New York in a suit brought by Mayor Rudy Giuliani

• This power is not expressly written in the Constitution so Congress cannot delegate their responsibilities to the President

• A Constitutional _______________________________

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must be passed to add the power• This power would greatly _________________________

the powers of the Presidency

The PresidencyThe Presidents and Paradoxes

• Great Expectations and Presidential Paradoxes – Americans want a president who is powerful and bold—

someone like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy.

– Yet Americans tend to ________________________ and

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do not like a concentration of power because they are individualistic and skeptical of authority.

Who is ranked as the greatest and worst Presidents in US history? ____________________________________________________

Who was the most popular president since WWII? __________

• Ratings highest during honeymoon periods and national crisis

Presidential Facts Main Officers—President and Vice President elected as a ―ticket

• Salary--$400,000 • Constitutional Qualifications:

– 35 years of age – natural _____________________– live in the US for 14 years Historical Informal ―Requirements

– White (except one), Male, Protestant (except one), rich

May serve 2 terms in office (_____________ Amendment, each term is four years) Nominate the 15 Cabinet-level positions that head up the 15 departments of the executive branch which constitute the most of the ________________________.

• Each head is nominated by President and confirmed by ______________________

• 4 Presidents assassinated in office, 4 died in office, 1 resigned.

What powers are granted to the POTUS that are enumerated in the Constitution?

Sources of Presidential Power Constitution

–Formal _____________________ Commander in Chief Appointments (heads of executive departments/agencies,

ambassadors, federal judges) (with Senate consent)

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Give a State of Union Address Receive Ambassadors Convene a special session of Congress Make Treaties (with Senate consent) Veto Pardon for federal offenses (but not impeachments)

What extraconstitutional powers have evolved over time that the POTUS has come to possess?

-Informal (Inherent/implied) • Implied from declaration "take Care that the Laws be

faithfully executed" made in Article II of the Constitution

• Send troops to battle without a declaration of war, create foreign policy, Guide Legislative Agenda, ―_____________________

• Special Presidential Powers, which many argue are inherent to the office, while others disagree

-Executive Orders —decrees by the President that have the full force and effect of law, usually used to direct a government department or agency into an action the President wants made in pursuance of an act of Congress or Supreme Court decision, some of which specifically delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power—EO’s cannot create _____________________

Lincolns’ Emancipation _____________________ Roosevelt putting Japanese-Americans into

______________________ Truman ordering the desegregation of the

________________ Eisenhower ordering the national guard to Little Rock to

help _____________________ Obama closing Guantanamo Bay detention center

–Emergency Powers: Lincoln suspending _____________________during Civil War

-Agenda Setting: The Bully Pulpit

The President can control public policy and discussion through…

• The media

• State of the Union speech

• Make policy proposals

• Encourage the Congress

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• Media as tool of Presidential Persuasion • Going Public via the Media

– Public support is perhaps the greatest source of ____________________ ____________________________ ____________________________

Media as tool of Presidential PersuasionPolicy Support

– Presidents attempt to gain public support through televised messages and maybe motivate them to contact Congress

• The public may not be receptive to the president’s message or misperceive it all together.

• A difficult task, given inattentive and apathetic public • May backfire: a lack of response speaks loudly • Many people in the White House deal with the media,

but the ___________________________is the main contact person.

– Press conferences are best-known direct interaction of president and media

– News coverage of presidents has become more negative.

Executive privilege• Power claimed by the President and other

members of the executive branch to resist certain ________ and other investigations by the legislative and judicial branches of government.

• Not mentioned in the Constitution• SCOTUS ruled it to be an element of the

separation of ______________________• Example: The right to privacy of conversation

between advisors and President• Privacy is needed for candid advice from advisors

without political pressure• Claim most legitimate in ___________________

US v. Nixon

- Nixon refused to hand over recorded conversations, claiming Exec. Privilege

- Court ruled in favor of US

- EP can’t be used to block the function of the federal court procedures

Quiz

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1. A presidential pardon would be an example of what type of presidential power?2. During WWII, FDR prohibited racial discrimination in the defense industry through executive order, would be an example of what type of power? 3. When Truman called for the desegregation of the military through executive order, this was an example of?4. President Wilson submitted the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate for ratification would be an example of what type of presidential power?

Presidential Roles• Chief of State (Head of State)• Chief Citizen• Chief of Party• Chief Legislator• Chief Economist• Chief Diplomat• Commander in Chief• Chief Executive• Chief Appointer • Role: Chief of State

Head of State—Acts as example for and symbol of the United States

• Represents America at special _________________ and ceremonies.

• Kings and Queens are heads of state.

• Awarding medals and speechmaking are examples of this role.

Chief Citizen

• Represents us all

• “First among equals”

Chief of the Party

• Presidents help members of their party get elected or appointed to office.

• They make campaign speeches needed for re-election.

• Head of ___________________________.

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Coattail effect? (When the President wins, his party wins too)

Chief Legislator• Congress has the power to make laws but Presidents

can influence this• Presents his agenda to Congress in the

__________________________________________• President can ASK Congress to propose bills, lobby

them for his agenda, and must sign bills into law or veto them (_____________________–Signing Statements: a written message from the President upon signing a bill that directs executive agencies on HOW they should implement a law as well as how it is to be interpreted. .

• Some see this as unconstitutional since it could be argued it serves a similar purpose as a line-item veto as well as usurping the courts job to interpret laws—the courts have not ruled one way or another on it.

• Can call special _____________________• Power of Presidency is weakened during the “lame

duck” period

Who has the most vetoes in US history? ____________________How many regular vetoes have there been in US history? _____How many pocket vetoes have there been in US history? _____How many vetoes have been overridden in US history? _______

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How many vetoes has Obama used? _______Barack Obama-December 30, 2009: Vetoed H.J.Res . 64 , Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2010, and for other purposes. Override attempt failed in House.-October 7, 2010: Vetoed H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010. Override attempt failed in House.

• Why has Obama used the veto so little? Gridlock

• Divided government – Prez and Congress majority represent different political parties

• “gridlock” – the inability to accomplish goals– Con – government operation shuts down– Pro – slows the decision making process, example of

check and balance, prevents the tyranny of the ____

Chief Guardian of the Economy • Manages fiscal policy of Nation (govt. taxing and

spending )• Proposes the annual governmental Budget to Congress

for approval. –Executive Offices:

• Office of Management and Budget (OMB) VID• Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)• Appoints _____________________• President and advisors Monitors

–Unemployment, inflation, taxation, business growth and general economic _____________________

The Budget Process President v. Congress• What is the Budget?

–The budget request includes funding requests for all federal executive departments and independent agencies.

• President proposes the budget through the OMB and Congress then investigates it through the CBO and then vote on it. Budget is then good for the next fiscal

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year: _____________________________________• If Congress does not pass the President’s Budget, the

government can go into ―_____________________ (happened twice in 1995).

Impoundment

• Presidential practice of refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress.

• Budget Reform and Impoundment Act of 1974 – president must _______________________

Role: Chief Diplomat• Architect of American foreign policy by directing the

actions of American ambassadors (who work under the State Department), which are appointed by the President (confirmed by Senate by simple majority)

• Enter into Executive Agreements with other nations, do not require Senate approval. Such agreements only apply to current terms.

• Signs treaties (with 2/3 Senate Confirmation) and trade agreements with leaders of other nations. _____________________

Famous Treaties:• Treaty of Paris 1898 to end the Spanish American

War, passed by one vote and annexed the Philippines• President Wilson negotiated the Treaty of Versailles

with the League of Nations to end WWI but could not get the necessary 2/3 Senate ratification vote

• Famous Executive Agreements:• FDR’s Destroyers for Base Deal, 1940• TR’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1907

Role: Commander-In-Chief US-

• In charge of US _____________________

• President decides where armed forces are to be stationed and when to deploy them.

Struggle between Congress and Presidency in Foreign Policy• In many ways, the Constitution “invites struggle”

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between the President and Congress–In General, the Congress usually defers to the President on Foreign Policy, but not always without conflict, especially _____________________

Constitution gives Congress the power to–Formal Powers:

• Declare War (__________________________________________

• Raise and Support and Army, provide and maintain a Navy, organize and call forth the militia

• Regulate _____________________• Senate must approve (advice and consent to)

presidential nominees for ambassadors, _____________________treaties the President may negotiate

• Pass laws on specific foreign policy issues• “Power of the Purse” (funds and appropriates

budgetary requests of President, most used in Executive departments)

–Informal Powers: Congress has oversight of Executive Agencies, such as the Defense Department, CIA, NSA, etc.

Struggle between Congress and Presidency in Foreign Policy• In many ways, the Constitution __________________

between the President and CongressConstitution, both formal and informal powers, allows the President to –Formal Powers: Commander in Chief of all military forces, appoint and receive ambassadors, make /negotiate treaties,

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_______________________–Powers seen as Implied and Inherent to the office via the Constitution

• Oversee State Department, which conducts American Foreign policy •Oversee the Department of Defense—one of the most expensive and influential departments within the executive branch–National Security Agency (NSA) —agency within the Department of Defense—advises the president regarding foreign and domestic security issues•CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)—Independent agency of the Executive Branch –advises the president based on ―_____________________

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the top military commander under President.

–Informal Powers: Seen as world leader, executive agreements with leaders of other nations, knowledgeable on issues and access to intelligence info, meet with world leaders, access to media to agenda set for foreign policy and build national morale

War Powers Act, 1973 • Reaction to LBJ misleading the US into the Vietnam

War though the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Nixon escalating the war when promising peace

• Passed over _____________________• Meant for Congress to reclaim war powers and limit

the power of the Presidency

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• President must notify Congress within 48 hours of sending troops into combat.

• President must consult with Congress whenever feasible.

• Conflicts are limited to _____________________ takes action.

• Congress can extend time from initial 60 days or can withdraw troops after 60 days with adequate notification to the President.

• Congress may end the combat commitment at any time by passing a concurrent resolution

– Many argue that this would amount to a legislative veto on the President’s actions. Legislative Vetoes are when congress override a Presidential Action—the legislative veto was deemed _____________________ _____________________

– Presidents usually see the War Powers Act as unconstitutional and continue to test the constitutional limits of using the military in foreign conflicts. SCOTUS has never heard a specific case on it.

The Chief Executive (CEO)

• The Offices of the Executive Branch are found in the White House and other federal buildings in Washington D.C.

• As CEO, the President oversees the entire administration and bureaucracy of the federal government and ensures that ___________________

Running the Government: The Chief Executive & Chief ―Appointer

• As Chief Executive, the president presides over the administration of government.–Constitutional Source of Power:

• Article II: ―take care that the laws be faithfully executed‖

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–Known as the ―____________________________ »Source of many of the ______________________ powers of the President –Today, federal bureaucracy spends $2-4 trillion a year and numbers more than 4 million employees (counting military)–Presidents appoints 500 high-level positions and 2,500 lesser jobs (require senate confirmation—advise and consent)

• Recess appointments–One way the President gets appointments through during divided government

Appointment Power

Power to appoint ambassadors, public officers, and Supreme Court Judges with ____________ approval (advice and consent)

Civil Service – most gov jobs under executive filled based on _____________ system

White House Office

• “Pyramid” model – assistants answer to a hierarchy up to a chief of staff (few top advisors to prez, prez free but isolated)

• “Circular” model – direct contact with staff (many top advisors to prez, prez busy but _________________

• Significance: determines what aids have the most _________________ on presidential decisions

Executive Office of the President

• National Security Council – advises on military and foreign policy

• Office of Management and Budget – prepares ____ __________________________________________

• National Economic Council – advises with economic planning

The Cabinet

• 15 major department heads advising prez

• “Inner cabinet” – Secretary of State, treasury, attorney _____________________________

Presidential Disability and Succession

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• 22nd Amendment – limited President to 2 terms, serving no more than ______________

• 25th Amendment – If the VP office is vacated, then the President can select a new VP

Impeachment

• House impeaches, Senate tries the prez, Chief Justice presides over the trial

• Two presidents impeached, neither removed (Andrew Johnson, ___________________

• Nixon resigned before impeached

The Evolution of Presidential Power • Founders: “Make him too weak, the legislature will

usurp his powers; make him too strong and he will usurp on the legislature”

• Today, we take for granted that Presidents seem to propose their legislative agenda and then wait for Congress to respond

• 1930s: FDR and New Deal created a “____________” for the poor that greatly expanded the size and power of the Federal government.

– Works Progress Administration (WPA), Unemployment insurance, Social Security

• The 70s and the ___________________________–Nixon: “When the President does it, that means it’s not

illegal”

The Congress, the President, and the Budget: The Politics of Taxing and Spending

Economic Basics

To what extent should the economy be regulated, if at all?

•Pure Capitalist Economy

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– Laissez-faire

Argument for:

Argument against:

Socialist Economy

Mixed Economy

Capitalism v. Democracy

Should social justice be a societal goal?

–Equality of opportunity or equality of result?

Are both attainable? Desirable? How?

Is democracy a vehicle towards ________________

Is capitalism a vehicle towards social justice?

Are capitalism and democracy compatible or antithetical to one another?

Key Terms Budget:

– A policy document allocating burdens (taxes) and benefits (expenditures).

Expenditures:– What the government _______ money

on. Revenues:

– Sources of money for the government. Deficit:

– An excess of federal expenditures over federal revenues in a given year. (Surplus opposite)

National Debt:– Money owed overall

Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy– Money supply (interest rates) vs.

_______________________________

Sources of Federal Revenue

Borrowing

– The Treasury Department sells bonds - this is how the government “borrows” money.

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Taxes

– Income tax _______________________

– Corporate income tax

– Social Security and Medicare Payroll taxes

– Excise

– Tariff

Should we all be taxes according to income (wealthy pay more) or should we have a set amount that each person pays?

Progressive Tax: – A tax proportionate to income –High to

Low– 10% for income 0-$27,050– 35% for income $357,000 and above– In 1945 the lowest bracket was 23% and

the highest _______________________– In 1970 the lowest bracket was 14% and

the highest was 71.75%– Reagan Era: lowest was 15% and

highest was ______________ Regressive Taxing: (__________________)

– A tax that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people

– The term is frequently applied in reference to fixed taxes, where every person has to pay the same amount of money

Flat Tax: – One percentage rate despite income

Supply-Side Economics Supply-side economics (_______________________)

call for lower taxes, specifically for the rich, and less regulation to stimulate the economy by allowing industry to create more ―supply

Reaganomics (1981-?)

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Tax Cuts to stimulate economy – Deregulation of industry/banks will lead to better growth (industry will invest in expansion and thus create more ―stuff—supply) – Decrease in government spending on domestic programs but a massive increase in military spending (to win the _____________) – Continued Nixon’s ―New Federalism ―Devolution –more power and authority back to the states, especially spending (increase in block grants)

19.1 Trillion National Debt: Who does the US owe?

Why can the US not balance its budget?Federal ExpendituresThe Rise and Decline of the National Security State

In the 50’s & 60’s, the DOD received more than half the federal budget.

Defense now constitutes about one-sixth of all federal expenditures.

The Rise of the Social Service State The biggest part of federal spending is now for

________________________ _______________________________ programs.

The biggest of these is Social Security. Social Security has been expanded since 1935 to include

disability benefits and Medicare. These benefit programs face financial problems with more

recipients living longer.“Uncontrollable” Expenditures

Spending determined by the number of recipients, not a __________________.

Mainly entitlement programs where the government pays known benefits to an unknown number of recipients - Social Security.

The only way to control the expenditures is to change the rules.

Social Security: Income Security

Social security is a government program designed to provide for the basic financial security and welfare of individuals and their dependents.

The program is primarily used by those who retire and are _________________ of age or older.

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It also covered those who are _______________

The Social Security Agency issues checks to _______ million Americans every month. The average retiree receives $1,053 a month (as of 2007).

Who Receives Social Security? ___________________________

Current Problems in Social Security Extremely Expensive and only getting more expensive

as expense of living conditions increase– About 51 million people collect Social

Security benefits each month for annual expenses of $615 billion (2008).

____________________ generation (1946-1964) is retiring which is causing a large strain on the system

People are living ___________ (and thereby drawing more from the account)

– ________________ costs have sky-rocketed only increasing the problem, especially for the elderly who tend to need more medical treatment.

•Declining _____________________ (less people to contribute to the fund) while increasing use of social security (more people using it)

Social Security Reform Proposals: -Increase ____________ at which retirees can collect it (current is 65)

Would force people to work longer and thus contribute more-Reduce benefits for those who receive it-Increase pay-roll _______________ for it

Remove or adjust cap (as of 2009, only on the first $106,000 of their wages are subject to payroll tax)

This is therefore a regressive tax, since the rich pay less of a percent of their income than poor and middle class

-Allow younger citizens to have private accounts (similar to a 401K) through the government and their payroll-Abolish social security for future generations and have them use _____________ companies or employers

Additions to Social Security: Welfare Programs Expanded Unemployment Insurance (federal funding

with state administration, so each program varies by state)

•Welfare programs such as:– Job Training, subsidized school lunches,

food stamps, reduced or free access to

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public transportation, federal Housing projects.

Food Stamps: 51% of all participants are children (17 or younger), and 65% of them live in single-parent households

41% of participants are white; 36% are African-American, non-Hispanic; 18% are Hispanic;

–These programs comprise less than _____________ of the federal budget.

Health Care Entitlements Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965 as part

of President Johnson ―______________ program and war on poverty

•Medicare (“care for ______________”) is a single-payer national insurance health insurance program for the elderly (age 65). Medicare does not cover all medical costs and surgeries.

– Program last expanded under Bush, Part D: ___________________

•Medicaid (“aid to poor”)Medicaid is a joint federal-state program (funded by federal and state money but run by states) that provides health insurance coverage to certain categories of low-income individuals, including children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities.

–Eligibility is ____________________ and reserved solely for those receiving welfare payments and varies by state.

Medicare and Medicaid Reform Proposals: Put more money into Medicare and Medicaid through

raising payroll taxes (FICA).

Create a national health care system (like most developed nations) and this way everyone will pay into one system.

Privatize these programs (still funded by taxes) and

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have companies bid for the lowest cost.

Eliminate these programs and rely on private industry and ___________________________

Stop federal programs and encourage states to expand their programs.

Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve System The Federal Reserve: The Central Bank of the United

States Part public, Part private institution (quasi-public

institution) Run by a __________________ board of economists

who serve a single but staggered 14-year term. Each person is nominated by the President (____________________________) and one person serves as Chairmen for a 4-year period.

The Fed is supposed to have independence in making monetary policy:

– Keeps them insulated from political pressure

– They are experts on monetary policy so Government defers to them when making decisions on monetary policy

– In theory, the fed makes decision efficiently.

12-regional banks make up the Federal Reserve System

How does the Federal Reserve control the money supply? THREE PRIMARY WAYS:

#1. It can buy U.S. Treasury bonds with its ―federal reserve notes (printed by the Treasury Department) thus increasing the money supply.

With more $$ in circulation, interest rates tend to drop and vice versa. The Fed sells these bonds to decrease the $$ supply which tends to __________________

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#2. Change the interest rate it charges member banks to borrow money from the Federal Reserve (known as the ___________________)—most reported by Media!

When ________________ is a threat (too much money supply), the fed will increase rates in order to tighten the money supply, as well as sell its U.S. Treasury bonds (thereby taking money out of circulation, thus reducing inflation and effectively raising interest rates across the nation)

In order to stimulate the economy during a recession(two consecutive quarters of economic contraction), the fed will lower interests rates to stimulate borrowing and growth, as well as buy more Treasury Bonds, thereby increasing the money supply and lowering interest rates across the nation.

– Problem: Stagflation—high unemployment and little growth (recession) and inflation

#3. Regulate the reserve requirement that banks must keep

The Fed will tell banks how much of an initial deposit they must keep _________________ while loaning the rest out.

– Lowering the requirement allows banks to lend out more, thus stimulating the economy

– Increasing the reserve requirement allows banks to lend less (since more must be kept in the bank)

Conclusion: Big Picture

Democracy and Budgeting

– Many politicians “spend” money to buy ________________.

– People like government programs, but they really don’t want to pay for them, thus there are deficits & the public debt.

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The Budget and the Scope of Government

– In sum, the budget represents the scope of government.

– The bigger the government, the bigger the ____________________.

– Limits on funding (taxes) can limit what the government can do.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucratic “Red Tape” Red tape: comes from the ribbon used by civil servants in

Britain to tie up legal document. Red Tape is often used to describe the amount of ________

citizens encounter when dealing with government.

Use space below for notes. I will come around and check to see if you added notes for points.

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Bureaucracy Large, complex organization of appointed, not elected,

officials. “bureau” – French for __________________ referring to the

king’s traveling business men who set up small desks in town squares

Bureaucracy = “government of small desks”Some Bureaucratic Myths and Realities

Americans dislike bureaucrats. Bureaucracies are growing bigger each year. Most federal bureaucrats work in Washington, D.C.

*Only about _____________ Bureaucracies are ineffective, inefficient and always mired

in red tape.Max Weber

Classic conception of bureaucracy Hierarchical _____________________ Uses task specialization Operate on the merit principle Behave with impersonality A well-organized machine with lots of working parts.

Modern Bureaucracy 1932-1945 – New Deal, WWII, increase in programs and

gov’t work 1950’s – 1970’s – 90% of all federal employees were

________________________ Salaries also chosen on merit

Who are bureaucrats? 1 out of 100 Americans work for government bureaucracy Examples US Postal Service Amtrak Corporation for _______________________________ Interstate Commerce Commission Federal _______________________________ Securities and Exchange Commission National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Most ________________________________ representative part of government.

What does the Bureaucracy do? Functions of the bureaucracy:Implementation(execution) of policy

Executive Departments, State Department, Energy Department, Justice Department, FEMA—agency in the Department of _______________________

Administration of services, collecting fees, issuing permits, conducting research, etc.

Social Security Administration, Office of Personnel Management (hires civil service), General Services

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Administration (govt. properties and records), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Regulation to independently serve the public good to ensure industry is in line with policy.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), FCC, FEC, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Munn v. Illinois (1877)- SC upheld that government had the right to regulate ___________________________________

Hybrids: Food and Drug Administration (FDA, hybrid b/c it is not independent but rather in the Department of Health and Human Services, same as FAA in the Department of Transportation )

Elements within the Bureaucracy can also serve as Government _________________________

FDIC, Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Corporation), U.S. Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Center for Public Broadcasting (PBS, NPR)

quasi-public Corporations: Federal Reserve Board—_______________________________________Accountability

Bureaucracy is constrained and controlled by the US government

Congress appropriates money, authorizes the spending of money,

oversees agency activityPresident Job appointments, executive orders, budget control,

_____________________________Failures

Gulf Oil Spill Bernie Madoff Katrine Response

Iron TrianglesHow it works?

Everyone in the triangle has a similar interest Legislators get funding from interest groups and make laws

reality with the help of the bureaucracy Interest groups provide valued information to bureaucrats

and money to legislators Bureau chiefs implement legislator policy and _______

_______________________Why are they “iron”?

Strong – bond can’t be broken by President or Congress Referred to as “__________________________________,”

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all the real decisions are made among these 3 groups Might maintain interests that might not be publicly

popular… like what? Example – Why is tobacco not illegal?

Issue Network More complicated connection exists Iron triangle too simple – there are IGs from opposite sides

of an issue who compete Issue Network – complex group (includes media) that

debates an issue and ________________________ Policy-making is not as smooth with competing demands

from IGs President can appoint an agency head who steers policy, but

can never smoothly ________________________Controlling the Bureaucracy

Patronage - Rewarding supporters with jobs “Spoils system” – created by ______________________,

each President turned over the bureaucracy Pendleton Act (1883) - Created in response to criticism of

patronage, more jobs will be selected based on _________ Hatch Act (1939) – agency employees can’t participate in

political activities (elections, campaigns, fund raisers, etc.) Softened in recent decades, 1st Amendment issues

Criticism of Bureaucracy “Red tape” – maze of gov rules, regulations, and paperwork

that makes gov overwhelming to citizens Conflict – agencies that often work toward opposite goals Duplication – agencies appear to do the _______________ Unchecked growth – agencies expand unnecessarily at high

costs Waste – spending more than necessary Lack of accountability – difficult in firing an _________

_________________________________________

Toward Deregulation Deregulation: The lifting of restrictions on business,

industry, and professional activities. Regulatory problems: Raises _______________________________- Hurts U.S.’s __________________________________ Does not always work well But some argue regulation is needed.

Understanding BureaucraciesBureaucracy and the Scope of Government

Many state that this is an example of a government out of control.

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But, the size of the bureaucracy has ___________________ Some agencies don’t have enough _____________ to do

what they are expected to do. Only carry out the policies, Congress and the president

decide what needs to be done.

Chapter 7: Congress 40 points Name: __________________________1. Answer the 3 thinking globally questions on page 229? (p. 229)2. Copy the charts on page 231 about Congress, but you can condense them into your own words (p.

231)3. Do Congress’s demographics resemble the US’s, yes or no and explain. (p. 232-233)4. What are the advantages of being an incumbent? Please copy the chart on page 234 (p. 234)5. What is the difference between redistricting and gerrymandering? (p. 234)6. Answer the 3 thinking globally questions on page 235? (p. 235)7. What are the five issues that the Supreme Court has involved itself in gerrymandering cases? (p.

235)8. Copy the charts on page 236 about organization in Congress. Try to add two names to each chart

of the current person sitting in one of the positions if possible. 9. Based on the maps on page 237, what states have sent a Democratic majority to the federal

government in both the House AND Senate?

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10. Based on the maps on page 237, what states have sent a Republican majority to the federal government in both the House AND Senate?

11. How is the Speaker of the House selected? (p. 238)12. What do whips do in Congress? (p. 239)13. What is the difference between the president pro tempore and majority leader in the Senate? Who

is more powerful? (p. 239-240)14. Copy the committee chart on page 24015. Please list 5 standing committees in the Senate and the House (p. 241)16. What is a discharge petition? (p. 241)17. How does someone become a committee chair? (p. 242)18. How is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans determined on a standing committee? (p. 242)19. In one concise sentence, how does a bill become a law? (p. 245)20. What are a hold, markup, filibuster, and cloture as related to passing legislation? (p. 246)21. What is the difference between a veto and pocket veto? (p. 247)22. What office did the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 establish? (p. 247)23. What is reconciliation? (p. 249)24. What happens if a continuing resolution (CR) is not passed? When were the last 2 times this

happened (Most recent time should be from memory)? (p. 249)25. What is the difference between an earmark and pork? (p. 249-250)26. What does Congressional oversight mean? (p. 250)27. What are four examples of Congressional oversight? (p. 251)28. What is congressional review? (p. 251)29. What is senatorial courtesy? (p. 251)30. What 4 presidents have had impeachment resolutions brought against them?31. Make a chart comparing the trustee, delegate, and politico models of representation. (p. 252)32. Join the debate on page 254. Pick a side on the debate and list three reasons you are right and one

reason why the other side is wrong. 33. How does log rolling help legislation get passed? (p. 255)34. What is a caucus within Congress? Name 3 caucuses in Congress? (p. 255-256)35. Answer the 3 critical thinking questions on page 257.36. Name 3 congressional support agencies (p. 258)37. How has the balance of power between Congress and the Presidency changed over time? (p. 259)38. How has the balance of power between Congress and the Judiciary changed over time? (p. 259)39. Please answer the six multiple choice questions on page 261.

Chapter 8: The Presidency 25 points Name: __________________________

1. What is executive privilege and how did the case of U.S. v. Nixon affect the right? (p. 269-270)

2. Answer the 3 critically thinking questions on page 2713. List the 6 Constitutional powers of the president: (p. 272-279)4. Which of the 6 Constitutional powers of the president do you think is the most

powerful, why? (p. 272-279)5. How is Congress able to limit the president’s power of appointment, make treaties,

veto, and commander in chief? (p. 272-279)6. What is a line item veto and does a president possess this power? (p. 277)

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7. Answer the 3 critically thinking questions on page 2748. How do executive agreements expand presidential powers? (p. 274)9. Join the debate on page 278. Pick a side on the debate and list three reasons you are

right and one reason why the other side is wrong.10.What 4 precedents did Washington establish as president? (p. 280-81)11. Answer the 3 thinking globally questions on page 283:12.What is the EOP? Please name at least 3 positions within it: (p. 285-86)13.What does “going public” mean related to the presidency? (p. 287-8)14.What did political scientist Richard Neustadt call the president’s ability to persuade

Congress and the public? (p. 28715.What is the president’s role in proposing legislation? Give at least 3 historical

examples. (p. 291)16.How do the president and Congress work together to make the budget? (p. 291-92)17.What is an executive order? Give 3 examples of them from history. (p. 292)18.What is the presidential act of ‘signing statements’? Does it increase or limit

presidential power? (p. 293)19.Please answer the six multiple choice questions on page 294.

AP US Government Chart Review HomeworkDue ______________________________ 30 Points

For the following concepts, make a T chart highlighting the differences between the concepts: House vs. Senate (8 differences) (p 41-42 helps) 4 types (not specific committees, but general kinds of them) of committees with a short

explanation of what they do (page 47 of packet) List 5 powerful standing committees in Congress and briefly describe their area of expertise POTUS Formal (Constitutional) vs. Informal (Inherent or Extra-Constitutional) Powers (6+ of

each) War/ Foreign Policy Powers POTUS and Congress possess (4 + traits of each) Ways to check the Bureaucracy (6+, copy from page 54 of your packet)

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For the following concepts, make a chart that list concepts for the following topics: What are 4 non-legislative powers of Congress (4 types, page 39-40)

Other charts Make a flow chart of the leadership structure of the House and Senate (page 44-45)

Make a Pie chart of federal revenues AND expenditures (2 total), just try to get the top 4 or so components in it, not every minor detail (google it)

Debate: Is Congress more powerful than the

President?Pages 32-46

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Yes British Fears point to yes

 

Because the Founders were so terrified of another King ruling them with tyranny, they set up a system that gave immense powers to the Legislature and Judiciary and few explicit powers to the head executive. The president does have some power, but nothing compared to the 2 houses of Congress.

Congress is More Powerful Constitutionally Speaking

They have power to impeach the president, pass a law if he vetoes, they are really the ones that are supposed to declare war Art 1.8 (Pres is only commander in chief when militia is CALLED into actual service Art 2.2), they hold the Elastic Clause Art 1.8 clause 18 to make all laws necessary and proper (like a blank check to power), they must approve treaties, and the power to originate revenue bills. Founders seemed to slightly lean to Congress because they are the representatives of the people. Now I'm going off the constitution. Which is most powerful at the moment is open to debate. Presidents have really over stepped their granted powers since the founding of the nation.

Yes congress is more powerful.

Yes congress is more powerful than the president. They have the right to impeach him and instate a new president which automatically makes them more powerful. They can also veto his bills and cause the decisions he make to not pass and become a law, if they do not agree that it is constitutional.

Constitutionally Speaking, Yes.

The legislative branch of the United States is set up in the first article of the constitution. This article grants congress the exclusive rights to mint money, barrow money, declare war, and to make laws among other things.

However it is true that the executive branch has gained much more power over the years, though congress still holds the vast majority of power in the United States government, and for the foreseeable future, always will.

No It used to be

At one time. The Congress was the most powerful branch as it controlled the power of the purse. Which means anything the President of the UNITED STATES tried to push which required funds, could be denied. Now however, our Congress has given up the power of the purse and is really and truly just a waste of time.

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The president is more powerful as head of the largest branch of government.

 

The president is the commander in chief of the military, can engage in limited armed conflict without the approval of congress, can write executive orders, and is the head of the Executive branch which does most of the government spending. True, congress passes the budget (with input from the president's budget and his signature), but the president has some leeway in how it is spent. Example: Obama canceled Constellation and created the Commercial Launch program instead.

The president has more power as head of the largest branch of government.

The president is the commander in chief of the military, and can engage in limited armed conflict without the approval of congress, can write executive orders, and is the head of the Executive branch which does most of the government spending. True, congress writes the budget (with input from the president's budget and his required signature), but the president has some leeway in how the money is spent. Example: Obama cancel Constellation and funded the Commercial Launch program instead.

Because of Executive Orders the President is More Powerful than Congress

Ideally the three branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) are separate and equal branches of government. One should not, by design, be more powerful than the others. However, due to the use of Executive Orders, the presidential branch essentially has the power to create law, which should only be a function of the legislative branch.

Can a President Be Too Strong?Can a president be too strong? "Of course not," most people would answer. "It's always better to be strong than weak."Perhaps. But can a president be so powerful that he or she threatens the nation's freedom? Should a president be allowed to violate the rights of the American people? Or to ignore the rights of other nations?In recent years, many people think that the president has become too strong. They say that the president has taken so much power from the other branches of government that this threatens our democratic system.

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Are there rules to tell a president how far he or she can go? The U.S. Constitution is supposed to prevent the president from using power in the wrong way. Article II states all the things that a president may do and some of the things that he or she may not do.

The Growing Power of the President

The Constitution was written over 200 years ago. The people who wrote it did not know about nuclear weapons or rockets to the moon or computers or television. They didn't know that the U.S. would some day be the richest, most powerful nation on Earth, with the power to destroy other nations in minutes. They didn't know that our economy would become so complicated and so big that it would require constant attention to keep it running smoothly.Therefore, the rules that they wrote in the Constitution say little about a modern president's real power. George Washington would be shocked to know the following facts:

The president today has the power to command the instant destruction of entire cities. The U.S. has thousands of missiles with nuclear warheads. Only the president can give the signal to launch them. How much military power did president Washington command in 1789? A few cannons and 718 soldiers.

The president's power is felt all over the world. The president travels by jet from one nation to another. Foreign leaders often come to the White House. If Washington had tried to visit Europe or Asia, he would have been on a ship at sea for months at a time.

The American people expect the president to deal with a huge number of problems. If there is economic trouble, they expect the president to cure it. Modern presidents don't just try to administer the laws passed by Congress. Nor do they merely "recommend measures" to Congress as required by the Constitution (Article II, Section 3). Through staff members, they often bring pressure on Congress to pass favored bills, including some actually written in the Executive Department. In Washington's day, many people thought the president's powers were only those directly mentioned in Article II of the Constitution.

Does the Constitution Allow a "Strong" President?

How much power should the president have? How much does the Constitution set limits to the president's actions? These are very old questions.Throughout American history, there have been many kinds of presidents. But a number of them have tended to fall into two very different groups in their attitudes toward presidential power.The first believed that the powers of the president were few and limited. presidents of this type thought they could, or should, do no more than follow the exact words of the Constitution and carry out the laws of Congress. You might call them "weak executive" presidents.That doesn't mean that they were weak people. It means only that they believed their actions were strictly limited by the Constitution. Modern examples of such presidents were Warren Harding (1921–23), Calvin Coolidge (1923–29), Herbert Hoover (1929–33), and Dwight Eisenhower (1953–61).Some others have been "strong executive" presidents. They believed the Constitution gave them enough power to be strong leaders. In their view, a president could act in ways not specifically mentioned by the Constitution.Almost all our most famous presidents since Abraham Lincoln have believed in a strong Presidency. Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09), Woodrow Wilson (1913–21), and Franklin Roosevelt (1933–45) all acted in bold new ways. Their critics were sometimes shocked by their actions and complained that the Constitution was ignored. But the "strong executive" defended himself.The question of how strong a president should be may be more important now than ever before. After all, the president has gained enormous power in recent years. Some scholars who once favored a strong president now believe that the trend has gone too far. They believe that we should go back to the days when the president and congress were more or less equal in power.What do you think? Below are arguments on either side of the question. Decide which argument is strongest.

The Case Against a Strong President

We often treat our presidents as if they were royalty. presidents live in a big mansion. They have servants and assistants whose only job is to make sure the president has everything he or she wants.They don't get much personal contact with the American people because the Secret Service fears they may be attacked. As one critic says: "No one speaks to him unless spoken to first. No one ever tells him to go soak his head when his demands become unreasonable."

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The president has taken more and more power at the expense of Congress. The people who wrote the Constitution believed in checking and balancing power between Congress and the president. But today, the president is more powerful than Congress.One example of what has happened is in the power to declare war. The Constitution clearly gives that power to Congress only. Yet recent presidents have been able to fight wars without a formal declaration of war by Congress.Take, for example, Vietnam. Though the president never asked Congress for a declaration of war against anyone in Southeast Asia, Congress allowed the president to conduct a war there.Congress passed a resolution allowing the president "to take all necessary measures to ... prevent aggression [in Vietnam]." Then, over the course of the years, it consistently gave the president the money that he said he needed to do so. It may be said that by doing this Congress willingly gave up its exclusive power to declare war.So run the arguments of those who are against the idea of a strong president.

The Case for a Strong President

The growth of the president's power is necessary. presidents should be strong and powerful.The U.S. today needs a strong president. Who else can give the nation leadership? Who else can make the quick decisions that are needed in a national emergency?In the old days, an army could move only as fast as its horses and sailing ships. There was plenty of time for Congress to debate issues of war and peace. But not today. Only the president can act fast enough in an emergency.Furthermore, only the president can give real leadership on the many national problems. Congress cannot lead as well as the president simply because there is only one president, but there are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. Members of Congress seldom agree on what to do.Unlike members of Congress, the president is elected by all the voters. The president does not represent just one part but the whole of the country. And if the people think that the president has taken too much power, they can always elect someone else every four years.So run the arguments of those who believe in the need for a strong president.

Congressional Power

The Framers of the Constitution clearly intended the Congress to be the most energetic and powerful branch of the national government. It was to the Congress that power was given to make laws, tax, spend and even declare war. The President and the Supreme Court may act independently of the Congress or even contrary to its wishes, but the Constitution extends to the Congress a much larger menu of powers than it does to the other branches.

While the Constitution affords the Executive and Judicial branches powers which can be used to check and balance the Legislative branch, the Framers took the additional precaution of dividing the Congress in two, creating a House of Representatives and a Senate. This was made necessary, Madison argued in The Federalist No. 51 because:

. . . It is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.

Consequently, while the Legislative branch is granted the most impressive array of powers by the Constitution, it can only exercise those powers when both the House and the Senate are in agreement. A bill cannot become law, taxes cannot be raised, war cannot be declared, and amendments to the Constitution cannot be proposed independently by one house. TheLegislative Process and the Budget Process require not only agreement between the Legislative and Executive Branches, but also within the Congress itself.

The Powers of the Congress

Article I of the Constitution establishes the structure, composition and authority of the Legislative branch. For the most part, the powers it grants to the Congress are shared jointly and equally by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Two significant exceptions to this rule, raising taxes and providing "Advice and Consent" to the President, are noted in the discussion below.

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The Power to Make Law

The lawmaking authority of the national government lies almost exclusively in the hands of the legislative branch. Section 1 of Article I declares that:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.

The President, Supreme Court Justices or any other individual, for that matter, cannot even introduce a bill in the House or Senate. Only members of Congress can do so. The Congress might seek the opinion of Executive or Judicial branch officials as it considers the creation of new laws or the modification of old ones; however, it is ultimately the Congress that determines the content and direction of the bills it passes. Because the President can veto legislation, the Congress will sometimes negotiate with the President to win presidential approval of the bills they pass. However, the veto power is a blunt instrument and must be used carefully. The Congress can override presidential vetoes and it can even cease cooperating with an overly beligerent President. As the legislative branch, the Congress has the clear upper hand in making and altering the laws of the land. (See also "The Legislative Process)."

Power of the Purse

A closely related power of the Congress is the exclusive authority to raise and spend money. The Constitution provides that Congress has the power to impose taxes and borrow money to "pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States." This authority is generally referred to as the "Power of the Purse," meaning the power to control what money is raised by the national government and how it is spent.

Each year, the Congress raises and spends almost two trillion dollars. Given the complexity and importance of the the Congress' exercise of this power, the Budget Process is discussed at length in its own section.

One notable exception to the equal sharing of legislative authority between the House and Senate is the requirement that "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives" (see Article I, Section 7). The Framers believed that Members of the House, being closest to the people, would have the greatest "knowledge of the interests and feelings of the people" and would be, therefore, more prudent than Senators in imposing taxes on the people. While the Senate must concur with any proposal made by the House, as with any other bill, the requirement that efforts to raise taxes begin in the House was clearly intended to provide a check against excessive taxes. Given the colonists' rejection of "taxation without representation" during the Revolutionary, it was also more than a symbolic gesture to keep the power of raising taxes in the hands of the closest representatives of the people.

Power to declare war

While the President is designated as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America, the Congress has power to "declare war." Presidents, without an official Declaration of War by the Congress, have repeatedly mobilized military forces and even engaged in "actions" that were "wars" in every sense the of the word. Because the Congress has the power of the purse, it ultimately has the ability to stop any presidentially initiated military action. It can simply refuse to provide any additional funding for the venture. The issues surrounding the use of the war power by the President and Congress have a long and complicated history. They are discussed in greater detail in "Presidential Power."

Oversight & Investigation

In addition to its legislative authority, the Congress, through practice and tradition, has assumed significant oversight and investigatory power. As the branch of government that creates the laws, the Congress has an obvious interest in making sure those laws are implemented properly and efficiently. When the Congress creates a program or establishes a new governmental policy, its implementation is assigned to an executive branch department or agency, such as the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Agriculture. Congressional committees pay careful attention to the implementation of policies within their jurisdiction. If a program is being mismanaged or if the responsible department or agency is heading in a direction other than that intended by the Congress, a committee can hold hearings and call agency or department heads before them to answer for their actions.

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Sometimes the Congress even investigates the President and his staff. High profile investigations of past Presidents have examined Nixon's involvement in the Watergate Hotel break-in, Ronald Reagan's knowledge of the Iran-Contra deal, and Bill Clinton's campaign fund-raising practices during the 1992 and 1996 elections. These investigations can put obscure members of Congress in the spotlight or propel well-known members to superstar status. During the 1990s, two members of Congress gained national prominence because of their leadership of special congressional committee investigations. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), chaired his committee's "Special Investigation" of President Clinton's and Vice President Gore's alleged campaign finance violations. Representative Chris Cox (R-CA, 47) chaired the House of Representatives' Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial

Concerns with the People's Republic of China. The Cox Committee issued a strongly-worded rebuke of the Clinton Administration, detailing information about widespread efforts by the Chinese government to obtain United States nuclear weapons technology.

Given the Congress's propensity to investigate people, and not just policies and programs, some members of Congress have been accused of putting political partisanship ahead of governing and the legislative process. Instead of identifying public policy problems and working cooperatively to develop solutions to them, these members, the critics charge, engage in a process of "revelation, investigation and prosecution" (R.I.P.) to defeat political foes outside the traditional legislative and electoral processes.1 While many Democrats would probably like to return the favor and launch investigations of George W. Bush and his administration, they are limited in their ability to do so because they have been in the minority during his two terms in office. Presidents are much more likely to be the subject of intense congressional scrutiny and investigation when the Senate and House are controlled by the opposing political party.

Whether it is used for good or ill, for partisan or nonpartisan purposes, the Congress's investigative and oversight authority is one of the most feared tools employed by the legislative branch. In many instances, the mere threat of a hearing or an investigation is enough to bring an agency or department into line with congressional wishes. A carefully worded letter or a well-timed phone call by a member of Congress can have the same impact as a full-blown investigation. Agencies and departments recognize that if they do not follow Congress's lead, the Congress has the ability to slash their budgets or even eliminate them altogether.

"Advice & Consent" of the Senate

While the House, not the Senate, is authorized to originate bills which raise taxes, the Senate is given the exclusive authority to give the President "Advice and Consent" on treaties and judicial and executive branch appointments. The Constitution declares that:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.Treaties

Article II of the Constitution grants to the President the authority to "receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers" and to "make Treaties" with the "Advice and Consent" of the Senate. In the case of treaties, "consent" means the support of two thirds of the Senate.

Treaties are generally ratified by the Senate without controversy. The ratification of the North America Free Trade Agreement, ratified by a sharply divided Senate in 1992, is a notable exception to this norm.

One of the oldest treaties still in effect to which the United States is a party is the "Jay Treaty," a treaty of "amity, commerce and navigation" between the United States and Great Britain signed in London on November 19, 1794. It was ratified by the Senate and entered into force on October 28, 1795.2 One of the more significant treaties entered into during 1999 was an agreement with the Russian Federation "concerning the safe, secure, and ecologically sound destruction of chemical weapons."3

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Confirmation of Judicial and Executive Appointees

Article II also states that the President shall, again with the "Advice and Consent" of the Senate, appoint "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law."

While most presidential nominations are approved by the Senate, the process has become politicized, much like the congressional oversight and investigation processes discussed above. Since the early 1980s, there have been several controversial and hard-fought battles over Supreme Court Justice nominees, with Robert Bork, whose nomination failed, and current Justice Clarence Thomas being the most notable. This process is discussed at length in "The Supreme Court."

Balance of War Powers: The U.S. President and CongressAuthor: Robert McMahon, Editor June 20, 2011

IntroductionThe U.S. Constitution gives Congress and the president different responsibilities over military action, but there have long been disputes about where one's war powers begin and the other's ends. The Obama administration's decision in August 2013 to seek congressional authorization for a military strike against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons has stirred new debate about the constitutional need for a president to request such approval and whether President Obama is creating a precedent that will hamstring future commanders in chief.

In the administration's previous major military intervention, participating in NATO air strikes against the Libyan regime in 2011, it stated that prior congressional

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approval (pdf) was not required because the limited military operations anticipated "were not a 'war' for constitutional purposes." At the time, many scholars had pointed to Obama's action as consistent with the greater assertion of presidential war powers since the end of World War II. Announcing his plans on Syria, Obama said he had the authority to take military action without specific congressional authorization. But the formal approval of Congress, he said, would provide a stronger basis for action and was "the right thing to do for our democracy."What are the president's war powers?

The U.S. Constitution empowers the president to wage wars as commander in chief while Congress has the power to declare wars--in fact to authorize hostilities at any level--and fund them. Legal scholars largely agree that presidents can order U.S. troops to fight when the country is attacked or attack appears imminent but chief executives from both major parties often differ with Congress over their ability to initiate military force in other combat situations. Presidents have demonstrated greater power to wage wars since the end of World War II. "The president has been commander in chief since 1789, but this notion that they can go to war whenever they want, and [ignore] Congress, that's a post-World War II attitude," says Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project (and former specialist in constitutional law at the Library of Congress).

Legal experts Noah Feldman and Samuel Issacharoff wrote in March 2007 in Slate that while the Constitution empowered the Congress to make and end war, it intended the president to have the power to wage war effectively, once an authorized war was begun. "In the modern era, no country--not even a parliamentary democracy--has been so foolhardy as to place a war under the guidance of a legislative body, rather than a single, unified command."

But other experts point to established limits of presidential power during wartime, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 1952 ruling that struck down President Harry S. Truman's order to maintain operations of the country's steel mills for national security reasons, which was found to be against the will of Congress. Some point to the Supreme Court's 2006 Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld ruling--which found special military commissions established by the Bush administration to be illegal--to stress the shared wartime powers of the president and Congress. Susan Low Bloch, a constitutional law expert at the Georgetown University Law Center, says the framers of the Constitution deliberately divided the war powers between the two branches to induce them to work together on such a vital issue.

Will the authorization process over Syria affect those powers?The president's decision to seek explicit authority for what has been described as a limited action could have lasting repercussions. In the view of some experts, the move could inhibit Obama for the rest of his term in his ability to initiate military action without congressional authority, or at a minimum it would heighten public expectations about the need for future presidents to seek congressional support. But a number of experts also say the Syria action warranted a request for congressional authorization. The planned use of military force in Syria without authorization would have amounted to a major constitutional stretch, writes Jack Goldsmith, a former U.S. assistant attorney general and current professor at Harvard Law School. Goldsmith wrote on the Lawfareblog that the envisioned action in Syria would have set a precedent for presidential unilateralism in part because "neither U.S. persons nor property are at stake, and no plausible self-defense rationale exists."

Can Congress set timelines for a troop withdrawal?

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The constitution gives the Congress power to set troop limits. A late twentieth-century example was the action by the Democrat-controlled Congress in the fall of 1983 setting up an eighteen-month time limit for U.S. troops already deployed as a peacekeeping force in Lebanon by President Ronald Reagan's Republican administration. But the eighteen-month limit was never tested. Within two weeks of the president signing that timeline measure into law, a suicide bomb destroyed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. service personnel. The Reagan administration withdrew its participation in the multinational force in Lebanon by the end of March 1984.

What is the War Powers Resolution?The 1973 War Powers Resolution followed a period of growing congressional concern over the unilateral presidential use of military force. Among other things, the legislation, which was passed over a veto by President Nixon, required that a president terminate combat in a foreign territory within sixty to ninety days unless there was congressional authorization to continue. It also sought to provide presidents with the leeway to respond to attacks or other emergencies. The measure was intended to provide more coordination between the executive and legislative branches on the use of force. It does not fully address the issue of winding down a conflict.

What impact has the War Powers Resolution had on waging wars?Experts say it has had mixed results. Alton Frye, a CFR presidential senior fellow at the time, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 that the response to the act was disappointing. "The resistance of every president to the law," he said, "beginning with President Nixon's unsuccessful veto, and the Supreme Court's refusal to provide a definitive ruling on the law's constitutionality, have left a worrisome cloud over legislative-executive relations in this crucial field."The Congressional Research Service says that from 1975 through 2011, presidents submitted 132 reports related to deployment of U.S. forces (PDF), as required by the resolution. But only one--the 1975 Mayaguez incident--cited action triggering the time limit. It found the reports from presidents, who usually said their actions were "consistent with the War Powers Resolution," ranged from embassy operations to full combat like the 2003 war with Iraq, which Congress authorized. Fisher, of the Constitution Project, says there has been some acknowledgment from presidents of the law's power. "I think in a lot of actions--in Granada [in 1983], in Panama in 1989--there seemed to be efforts to get things wrapped up by the sixty-day limit," he says.

What are the president's options in the event of Congress cutting off funding?Despite Congress' power of the purse, a number of experts cite the factors favoring the executive branch during wartime. CFR's James Lindsay, writing during the 2011 debates over Libyan intervention, noted the tough calculus involved in Congress challenging a president's ability to act militarily, in his blog, The Water's Edge: "Congress can stop the president only by passing a law that commands him to do so. But that law is subject to a presidential veto. As long as a president can get thirty-four senators to back him, and almost every president can, he carries the day even if the other 501 members of Congress are opposed."

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Who is more powerful in making war? Presidential War Powers: The Constitutional Answer by Tom WoodsThere’s a lot of confusion, on right and left alike, regarding the president’s war powers under the Constitution. Here’s an overview of the most common claims on behalf of such powers, along with replies to these claims.

“The president has the power to initiate hostilities without consulting Congress.”Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution – which refers to the president as the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” – has been interpreted this way.

But what the framers actually meant by that clause was that once war has been declared, it was the President’s responsibility as commander-in-chief to direct the war. Alexander Hamilton spoke in such terms when he said that the president, although lacking the power to declare war, would have “the direction of war when authorized or begun.” The president acting alone was authorized only to repel sudden attacks (hence the decision to withhold from him only the power to “declare” war, not to “make” war, which was thought to be a necessary emergency power in case of foreign attack).

The Framers assigned to Congress what David Gray Adler has called “senior status in a partnership with the president for the purpose of conducting foreign policy.” Congress possesses the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” “to raise and support Armies,” to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” to “provide for the common Defense,” and even “to declare War.” Congress shares with the president the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors. As for the president himself, he is assigned only two powers relating to foreign affairs: he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and he has the power to receive ambassadors.

At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates expressly disclaimed any intention to model the American executive exactly after the British monarchy. James Wilson, for example, remarked that the powers of the British king did not constitute “a proper guide in defining the executive powers. Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among others that of war & peace.” Edmund Randolph likewise contended that the delegates had “no motive to be governed by the British Government as our prototype.”

To repose such foreign-policy authority in the legislative rather than the executive branch of government was a deliberate and dramatic break with the British model of government with which they were most familiar, as well as with that of other nations, where the executive branch (in effect, the monarch) possessed all such rights, including

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the exclusive right to declare war. The Framers of the Constitution believed that history testified to the executive’s penchant for war. As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”  Madison even proposed excluding the president from the negotiation of peace treaties, on the grounds that he might obstruct a settlement out of a desire to derive “power and importance from a state of war.”

At the Constitutional Convention, Pierce Butler “was for vesting the power in the President, who will have all the requisite qualities, and will not make war but when the nation will support it.” Butler’s motion did not receive so much as a second.

James Wilson assured the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, “This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must be made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our interest can draw us into war.”

In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton explained that the president’s authority “would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the Legislature.”

According to John Bassett Moore, the great authority on international law who (among other credentials) occupied the first professorship of international law at Columbia University, “There can hardly be room for doubt that the framers of the constitution, when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace.”

In conformity with this understanding, George Washington’s operations on his own authority against the Indians were confined to defensive measures, conscious as he was that the approval of Congress would be necessary for anything further. “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress,” he said, “therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

“John Adams made war on France without consulting Congress.”Supporters of a broad executive war power have sometimes appealed to the Quasi War with France, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, as an example of unilateral

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warmaking on the part of the president. Francis Wormuth, an authority on war powers and the Constitution, describes that contention as “altogether false.” John Adams “took absolutely no independent action. Congress passed a series of acts that amounted, so the Supreme Court said, to a declaration of imperfect war; and Adams complied with these statutes.” (Wormuth’s reference to the Supreme Court recalls a decision rendered in the wake of the Quasi War, in which the Court ruled that Congress could either declare war or approve hostilities by means of statutes that authorized an undeclared war. The Quasi War was an example of the latter case.)

An incident that occurred during the Quasi War throws further light on the true extent of presidential war powers. Congress authorized the president to seize vessels sailing to French ports. But President Adams, acting on his own authority and without the sanction of Congress, instructed American ships to capture vessels sailing either to or from French ports. Captain George Little, acting under the authority of Adams’ order, seized a Danish ship sailing from a French port. When Little was sued for damages, the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Captain Little could indeed be sued for damages in the case. “In short,” writes war powers expert Louis Fisher in summary, “congressional policy announced in a statute necessarily prevails over inconsistent presidential orders and military actions. Presidential orders, even those issued as Commander in Chief, are subject to restrictions imposed by Congress.”

“Jefferson acted unilaterally against the Barbary pirates.”Another incident frequently cited on behalf of a general presidential power to deploy American forces and commence hostilities involves Jefferson’s policy toward the Barbary states, which demanded protection money from governments whose ships sailed the Mediterranean. Congressional naval legislation had provided that, among other things, six frigates “shall be officered and manned as the President of the United States may direct.” (Final authorization for the funding of the last three of these ships was approved only in late 1798, so the frigates in question were ready for action immediately prior to Jefferson’s accession to office.) It was to this instruction and authority that Jefferson appealed when he ordered American ships to the Mediterranean. In the event of a declaration of war on the United States by the Barbary powers, these ships were to “protect our commerce & chastise their insolence – by sinking, burning or destroying their ships & Vessels wherever you shall find them.”

In late 1801, the pasha of Tripoli did declare war on the U.S. Jefferson sent a small force to the area to protect American ships and citizens against potential aggression, but insisted that he was “unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense”; Congress alone could authorize “measures of offense also.” Thus Jefferson told Congress: “I communicate [to you] all material information on this subject, that in the exercise of this important function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight.”

Jefferson consistently deferred to Congress in his dealings with the Barbary pirates. “Recent studies by the Justice Department and statements made during congressional

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debate,” Louis Fisher writes, “imply that Jefferson took military measures against the Barbary powers without seeking the approval or authority of Congress. In fact, in at least ten statutes, Congress explicitly authorized military action by Presidents Jefferson and Madison. Congress passed legislation in 1802 to authorize the President to equip armed vessels to protect commerce and seamen in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and adjoining seas. The statute authorized American ships to seize vessels belonging to the Bey of Tripoli, with the captured property distributed to those who brought the vessels into port. Additional legislation in 1804 gave explicit support for ‘warlike operations against the regency of Tripoli, or any other of the Barbary powers.’”

Consider also Jefferson’s statement to Congress in late 1805 regarding a boundary dispute with Spain over Louisiana and Florida. According to Jefferson, Spain appeared to have an “intention to advance on our possessions until they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force…. But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every fact material for their information and the documents necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal that which they shall approve.”

“Presidents have sent men into battle hundreds of times without getting congressional authorization.”This argument, like so much propaganda, originated with the U.S. government itself. At the time of the Korean War, a number of congressmen contended that “history will show that on more than 100 occasions in the life of this Republic the President as Commander in Chief has ordered the fleet or the troops to do certain things which involved the risk of war” without the consent of Congress. In 1966, in defense of the Vietnam War, the State Department adopted a similar line: “Since the Constitution was adopted there have been at least 125 instances in which the President has ordered the armed forces to take action or maintain positions abroad without obtaining prior congressional authorization, starting with the ‘undeclared war’ with France (1798-1800).”

We have already seen that the war with France in no way lends support to those who favor broad presidential war powers. As for the rest, the great presidential scholar Edward S. Corwin pointed out that this lengthy list of alleged precedents consisted mainly of “fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like.”

To support their position, therefore, the neoconservatives and their left-liberal clones are counting chases of cattle rustlers as examples of presidential warmaking, and as precedents for sending millions of Americans into war with foreign governments on the other side of the globe.“The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gives the president the power to commit troops anywhere he likes for 90 days.”

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The War Powers Resolution is incoherent. Section 2(c) provides that the president’s power to initiate military action is limited to “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”  But at the same time, it authorizes the president to introduce military force for up to 90 days for any reason at all, which is obviously unconstitutional.  I’ve written on this elsewhere.For more on this topic, see Louis Fisher’s article on Thomas Eagleton.“If the United Nations authorizes military action, the president does not need to consult Congress.”The UN Charter itself notes that the Security Council’s commitment of member nations’ troops must be authorized by these nations’ “respective constitutional processes.”  The Congressional Research Service’s Louis Fisher explains further: “Assured by Truman that he understood and respected the war prerogatives of Congress, the Senate ratified the UN Charter. Article 43 provided that all UN members shall make available to the Security Council, in accordance with special agreements, armed forces and other assistance. Each nation would ratify those agreements ‘in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.’ It then became the obligation of Congress to pass legislation to define the constitutional processes of the United States. Section 6 of the UN Participation Act of 1945 states with singular clarity that the special agreements ‘shall be subject to the approval of the Congress by appropriate Act or joint resolution.’ The procedure was specific and clear. Both branches knew what the Constitution required. The President would first have to obtain the approval of Congress.”

The UN Participation Act’s provisions regarding military action and the president have often been misread, thanks to a qualification in Article 6.  But that qualification simply means that once the president has obtained congressional approval for a special agreement with the UN Security Council to make American forces available to the UN, he does not need congressional approval a second time to implement that agreement.

Fisher elaborates on the UN Participation Act of 1945 here.  (See especially pp. 1249-1250.)The remaining claims, somewhat more technical in nature, have been put forth most memorably by John Yoo, former deputy assistant attorney general under George W. Bush. These are paraphrases of Yoo’s positions. They are replied to in much more detail in Who Killed the Constitution? by the present author and Kevin Gutzman.“In the eighteenth century, a ‘declaration of war’ was a merely rhetorical and communicative act – a ‘courtesy to the enemy’ – and did not involve the initiation or authorization of hostilities.  Thus in granting Congress the power to declare war, the Constitution had merely given it the power to communicate to an enemy people (as well as to neutrals and to the country’s own citizens that a state of war existed; the president, on the other hand, retained the power actually to bring the United States into war by commencing military action.”

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This is partly correct.  In the eighteenth century a “declaration of war” could indeed have this lesser meaning.  But a review of eighteenth-century usage reveals that to “declare war” could also mean actually to begin a war.

Consider also that as the Constitution was being debated, Federalists sought to reassure skeptical anti-Federalists that the president’s powers were not so expansive after all.  For one thing, the Federalists said, the president lacked the power to declare war.  In order for their argument to carry any weight, “declare war” must have been taken to mean the power to initiate hostilities – for no anti-Federalist would have been appeased by “Sure, the president can take the country to war on his own initiative, but the power to draft declaratory statements will rest with Congress!”

If Yoo’s argument were correct, we should expect to see presidents in the years immediately following ratification of the Constitution taking bold military action without concerning themselves much about the will of Congress, which according to Yoo had only the power to issue declaratory statements.  But as we have seen in the examples of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, the opposite was in fact the case; these early presidents were careful to defer to Congress.

“Congress may have some power over major wars, but lesser uses of force are reserved to the president alone.”The evidence from the early republic contradicts this claim.  Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase summed up the reigning doctrine in 1800: “Congress is empowered to declare a general war, or congress may wage a limited war; limited in place, in objects and in time.”  The 1804 case of Little v. Barreme involved a ship commander who, during the Quasi War with France in the late 1790s, had seized a ship that he thought was illegally trading with France.  The commander was following a directive from President John Adams in seizing this ship, which had been coming from France.  But Congress had authorized President Adams only to seize ships going to France; in short, the president’s directive ventured beyond what congress had called for in this limited war.  In a unanimous decision, the Court declared that the commander was liable for damages even though he had acted in accordance with a presidential directive.  No such presidential directive could override the authority of Congress, said the Court.“The Vesting Clause grants the president a wide array of unspecified powers pertaining to foreign affairs.”You won’t hear this argument in many casual discussions of presidential war powers, but since Yoo cited it in a draft memorandum he wrote for the Department of Defense in early 2002, it’s worth a brief reply. (Again, a lengthier reply can be found in Who Killed the Constitution?)The Vesting Clause can be found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution; “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”  According to this view, the Vesting Clause bestows on the president a host of unspecified powers in addition to the specific ones listed in the rest of Article II.  The Framers of the Constitution, they say, thereby showed that they wanted the president to exercise all powers that would have been recognized in the eighteenth century as being fundamentally executive in nature, even if those powers are not actually mentioned in the Constitution.  Congress, on the other hand, is assigned no such open-

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ended authority but is instead limited by the Constitution to all “legislative Powers herein granted,” a reference to the specific list of powers that then follows.  The conclusion: the president may rightly exercise all powers relating to foreign affairs (since such powers are by their nature executive) except those specifically assigned to Congress.

Unfortunately for Yoo, he will not find any support for his views on executive power and the Vesting Clause in the state constitutions drawn up after 1776, in the Federalist, or in the state ratification debates.  Nowhere in the state constitutions do we see any indication of an intent to vest the executive with an array of unspecified powers beyond those that were expressly mentioned.  In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton argued that the American president would be much weaker than the British king, and cited the specific list of powers the Constitution grants the president.  That argument would have been absurd and dishonest if the Vesting Clause had given the president an additional reservoir of powers beyond those Hamilton catalogued.  Curtis Bradley and Martin Flaherty, writing in the Michigan Law Review, conclude that “in the thousands of pages recording these debates the argument that the Vesting Clause grants the president a general foreign affairs power simply does not appear.”In short, there is no constitutional support for the presidential war powers claimed by mainstream left and right.  That’s why they usually wind up claiming that the congressional power to declare war is “obsolete.”  They can’t deny its existence, so they deny the document in which it is contained.  And that means they lose the argument.

5 Reasons Vetoes Have Gone Out Of Styleby ALAN GREENBLATTPresident Obama in recent weeks has twice threatened to veto legislation before Congress. Don't hold your breath that it will happen.

It's not that Obama isn't sincerely troubled by bills regarding debt repayment and online privacy. Actually vetoing legislation, though, no longer seems to be part of the equation — in part because so few bills actually make it to the president's desk.In more than four years in office, Obama has issued a grand total of two vetoes. That's a lot fewer than some of his recent predecessors. In fact, it's the lowest total since Martin Van Buren, who left office in 1841.

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By comparison, George H.W. Bush exercised his veto authority 44 times during his single term, while Bill Clinton took out his veto pen 37 times.

The veto gives presidents enormous sway over legislation. They can stop bills dead that they don't like because it takes two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override a veto, which rarely happens.

"You can coerce cooperation out of Congress," says Sarah Binder, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution. "As long as Congress prefers something to nothing, they have an incentive to be responsive to the presidential veto."

But there have been fewer vetoes to respond to in recent years. George W. Bush issued only a dozen vetoes, all in his second term. He had been the first president since John Quincy Adams to go an entire term without vetoing anything.There are a number of reasons why the veto is becoming a forgotten part of the legislative process:

1. The White House Shapes Legislation EarlyWhen a major bill is moving, it's now typically shepherded not by committee chairs, but by top chamber leaders. They consult with the administration early and often to make sure the president will sign off on the final product.

"If they're going to make an effort to pass anything, they want to get the White House involved," says Brendan Daly, a former aide to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. "There just aren't that many laws that are passing, and those that do pass need help from the White House."

Whether it's Obama trying to work things out with House Speaker John Boehner, or Vice President Joe Biden negotiating with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the administration makes its desires known while bills are still being shaped.

"The divide in Congress is so deep that they're not working through the [traditional] legislative process," says Ilona Nickels, a congressional scholar. "They're starting by talking to the White House to find out what is possible."

2. A Divided Congress Mitigates Veto ThreatsPresidents typically veto more legislation when Congress is controlled by the other party. In the current situation, with Congress itself divided — the House is controlled by Republicans and the Senate is held by Democrats — Obama is going to see fewer bills to which he might object.

During the Congress that concluded in January, House Republicans on more than 30 occasions passed legislation to overturn, defund or dismantle the president's health care law. Obama would have been happy to veto any one of those bills, but the Senate never bothered with them.For all the complaints from House Republicans that the Senate doesn't take up their bills, at least it spares them from having to worry about vetoes.

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"The [Senate] Democrats are going to have some impact," Binder says. "They're not going to send a bill through the Senate that Obama's going to reject."

3. You Can't Veto What Doesn't PassObama's smaller veto total has a lot to do with the lack of legislation coming out of Capitol Hill these days. The 112th Congress was by some measures among the least productive in history.That Congress managed to pass fewer than 230 bills, the least in decades. Many of these had to do with naming U.S. Post Offices and the like.

"You have to have it on your desk before you can veto it," says Don Ritchie, the Senate's official historian.

4. Bills Have Gotten BiggerWith so few bills moving, the stakes are higher for the few pieces of major legislation that do pass.

This means the president has to think long and hard before rejecting significant legislation.

"Bills have gotten bigger," Ritchie says. "They bundle lots of issues, and the president is loath to veto parts of it."

In January, Obama signed a $633 billion defense authorization act despite having threatened to veto it, issuing a signing statementthat said the need for the bill was "too great to ignore."5. Presidents Object Only To Parts Of BillsThe statement gave Obama the chance to highlight and challenge parts of the law that prompted his veto threat, including policy toward prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The use of signing statements has become a way for presidents to offer what amounts to a partial veto, saying they will direct agencies to disregard the provisions they don't like.

Ronald Reagan expanded the use of signing statements, according to the Congressional Research Service, but the practice gained notoriety during the presidency of George W. Bush, who challenged more than 1,000 provisions of law.The American Bar Association complained that this amounted to a flouting of the constitutional separation of powers, but it may also act as a pressure valve encouraging presidents to sign bills they might otherwise veto."Basically, what Bush was doing was item-vetoing stuff," says Cary Covington, a University of Iowa political scientist. "Now, Obama's doing the same thing."

The Slow Death of the Presidential VetoThe Bowe Bergdahl episode reveals an often-underscrutinized constitutional problem. Robert W. Merry June 8, 2014

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Lost in all the emotion unleashed by the Bowe Bergdahl episode is the disturbing

question of how the U.S. government should deal with matters of constitutionality. It’s fine

and good to fight this high-voltage Bergdahl matter out in the political arena, which ultimately

can render a judgment on the wisdom or lack of wisdom in President Obama’s prisoner swap

with the Afghanistan Taliban. But did Obama break the law in pursuing that swap, which

involved Guantanamo prisoners, given that Congress had enacted legislative language

requiring the president to notify Congress thirty days prior to any release of Guantanamo

detainees? Or was that legislative language itself unconstitutional, thus giving the president

leave to ignore it?

We’re in dangerous territory here. It’s dangerous, first of all, when Congress seeks to

micromanage the president on matters related to his constitutional powers to wage war. The

Framers gave Congress the sole responsibility for declaring war, which is an awesome

responsibility that Congress has seen fit to shirk in many respects in recent decades. But, once

we are in a war, the president has the responsibility, as Commander in Chief, for waging it. He

can’t do so if he is encumbered by Congress on how he must exercise the small points of his

military responsibility.

When and how to repatriate a lost soldier certainly fits within that jurisdictional area

that belongs to the president. So does the matter of how to deal with prisoners of war, though

it seems reasonable that the president should be subject to broad policy injunctions from

Congress on how to treat those who are captured.

Thus, Congress’s thirty-day requirement raises serious constitutional questions, as

Obama emphasized when that thirty-day legislation, buried in a much broader defense-

authorization bill, reached his desk. He issued a “signing statement,” saying that he felt the

requirement was unconstitutional and hence he may ignore it in the future.

But why didn’t he veto it? The presidential veto represents one of the Constitution’s foremost

protections against congressional activity that exceeds the bounds of the country’s founding

document. Indeed, early presidents generally confined their veto decisions to matters that

raised, in their minds, constitutional questions. It wasn’t until Andrew Jackson argued that,

no, the presidential veto power represented more than just a protection against

unconstitutional actions by the legislature. It was, rather, he said, a tool to maintain

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presidential prerogative and thus, a balance of power between the two branches. Still, he

exercised his veto only twelve times during his eight-year presidency.

Grover Cleveland, who served two nonconsecutive terms in the 1880s and 1890s,

vetoed 414 bills—largely legislation related to Civil War pensions that the president

considered excessive and unjustified. This was a major departure from previous practice, as

the number of Cleveland’s vetoes exceeded the number of vetoes of all the presidents before

him.

But the “veto king” was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who never liked to see political power

lying around unused when there were agendas to pursue and problems to solve. FDR, a

Democrat, vetoed 635 bills during his twelve-year presidency, and during nearly all of this

time, Congress was controlled by the president’s own party.

Roosevelt set a precedent that was followed, at least somewhat, during the next two

presidencies. Harry Truman vetoed 250 bills, while his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, vetoed

181. Since then, most presidents have dropped back to veto activity more in line with the

historical norm. Gerald Ford, a beleaguered president who inherited the office after the

resignation of Richard Nixon, vetoed sixty-six bills. Subsequent veto numbers were: Jimmy

Carter, thirty-one; Ronald Reagan, seventy-eight; George H. W. Bush, forty-four; Bill

Clinton, thirty-seven; George W. Bush, ten; and Obama, two.

What we see here is a serious decline in the use of the veto weapon by the last two

presidents. But these also are the presidents who have issued “signing statements” declaring

their view on the constitutionality of particular pieces of legislation. These often suggested the

president considered himself free to ignore particular provisions of legislation deemed

unconstitutional.

This represents a gutless, cop-out approach to presidential leadership—and also

violates the spirit of the Constitution. When the president signs a piece of legislation, it

becomes the law of the land and isn’t subject to his whims as to whether he wishes or doesn’t

wish to obey it.

But now we have the spectacle of a president who signed legislation he considered

unconstitutional and then spurned it after it became a duly enacted law. This is dual

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malfeasance—first, neglecting to protect the nation from a possibly unconstitutional

legislative action; and then violating his constitutional obligation to follow the law.

Some might argue that Obama had little choice on whether to sign the defense

authorization bill, even with the thirty-day-notice provision, because the broader legislative

package was so much more important than that small provision. The best response to that is a

question: Since when did constitutional rectitude become an ancillary matter, so limited in

importance as to be held hostage to routine legislative activity?

For top officials of the U.S. government, nothing is more important than the Constitution. If the president feels any provision of legislation reaching him violates that hallowed document, he has an obligation to act accordingly. In the instant case, that would mean sending the authorization bill back to Congress with a veto stamp emblazoned upon it and an admonition to pass it again sans the offending language. That would be consonant with his oath to “preserve and protect” the Constitution.

Obama: I didn’t appreciate how weak the presidency is until I was presidentUpdated by Andrew Prokop on November 17, 2015, 12:00 p.m. ET @awprokop

One big thing Barack Obama has learned about being president? The job isn't as powerful as you might expect.

In a new interview with Bill Simmons at GQ, which is well worth reading in full, Obama explains that he "didn't fully appreciate" how "decentralized power is" in the US political system until he took office.

That is, to get anything done, he had to spend a ton of his time trying to persuade other people. Here's what he told Simmons:

OBAMA: What I didn’t fully appreciate, and nobody can appreciate until they’re in the position, is how decentralized power is in this system. When you’re in the seat and you’re seeing the housing market collapse and you are seeing unemployment skyrocketing and you have a sense of what the right thing to do is, then you realize, "Okay, not only do I have to persuade my own party, not only do I have to prevent the other party from blocking what the right thing to do is, but now I can anticipate this lawsuit, this lobbying taking place, and this federal agency that technically is independent, so I can’t tell them what to do. I’ve got the Federal Reserve, and I’m hoping that they do the right thing—and by the way, since the

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economy now is global, I’ve got to make sure that the Europeans, the Asians, the Chinese, everybody is on board." A lot of the work is not just identifying the right policy but now constantly building these ever shifting coalitions to be able to actually implement and execute and get it done.Of course, that's right — on a great many issues, the president isn't the policy-wonk-in-chief, he's the coalition-builder-in-chief. And without a strong enough coalition, he can't get his way. This is true on issue after issue — from gun control to the cap-and-trade bill to immigration reform.

This is a common realization that presidents have after taking office. Indeed, it's so common that political scientist Richard Neustadt wrote a book about it decades ago, in which he made the famous argument that at its heart, "Presidential power is the power to persuade."

Now, Neustadt didn't just mean that the president has to rely only on convincing people with the power of his words. Instead, the president is engaged in a long bargaining give and take with all of those actors Obama listed. The president's position, prominence, and powers provide many advantages in that process. Still, of course, presidents often fail to get their way — and even when they do get what they want, they feel like they're working awfully hard at it. Neustadt quotes President Harry Truman complaining:

"I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them. ... That's all the powers of the President amount to."Indeed, Obama has chafed against these limits so much that he's pushed the limits of his executive authority in some novel ways, as I described last year. But even here, he has been hemmed in by the courts — for instance, his major 2014 immigration executive actions are currently in legal limbo.So the president's difficulty getting his way is a persistent feature of American democracy. And Matt Yglesias has argued that it could eventually lead to the doom of the American system — if this usual bargaining and persuasion process breaks down due to increased polarization, presidents will stretch the limits of their authorities ever further, leading to an eventual constitutional crisis.For now, though, Obama's realization will be familiar to other presidents. As George W. Bush once said, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier."

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Review Quiz: Name: ____________________________1. Which part of Congress must all tax bills originate in?

2. Which part of Congress is most influential in foreign policy?

3. Which Congressional committee in the House is in charge of taxes?

4. Which House committee sets the time limit for debate and amendment rules for a bill?

5. Please name one formal and informal power of the President of the United States?

6. What 1973 law tried to reclaim Congress’s war declaration powers and limit the President’s powers?

7. What term describes the privilege of the free use of US mail?

8. What part of Congress must confirm Presidential appointments?

9. What type of committee settles the differences between a House and Senate bill?

10. What is the process called of drawing Congressional districts within a state?

11. What is the term to describe the process when politicians in a sense select their voters by drawing their

district lines to their favor?

12. If a formal treaty is too hard to pass through the Senate, then what might a President do instead?

13. What does impoundment mean?

14. How can the Feds affect the economy?

15. What is the number one thing the federal government spends money on?

16. Congress can often not change its spending habits because most of the money for next year has already

been promised to be paid out. What term describes this type of spending that is already promised to take

place?

17. Who is more loyal to the President, a cabinet member or a White House staffer?

18. How does pork barrel spending help legislation get passed?

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Institutions of National Government: Are term limits for members of Congress

legal?

Not at the national level—it would take a constitutional amendment. However, some state

legislatures have term limits.

Institutions of National Government: How is Congress apportioned?

Every ten years, the census bureau conducts the national census of each state’s population. The

House of Representative’s 435 seats are re-divided according to changes in populations of the states.

Each state is guaranteed at least one representative in the House of Representatives by the

Constitution.

Institutions of National Government: What is the difference between a marginal

district and a safe district?

A marginal district is one in which a close election takes place, where the winner gets less than 55

percent of the vote. A safe district is one where the margin is at least 60 percent of the vote. The

percentage of House districts that are considered safe is almost 90%. About 50% of Senate districts

are considered safe.

Institutions of National Government: Who are the only presidents ever to be

impeached?

In 1868, after violating the Tenure in Office Act, the House of Representatives impeached Andrew Johnson. The Senate failed to convict him in the

impeachment trial by a one-vote margin. In 2000, the House impeached Bill Clinton on counts of

perjury and obstructing justice. He was also acquitted by the Senate.

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Institutions of National Government: What is the composition of the Executive

Office of the President and what is its role?

The Executive Office of the President (EOP) is an umbrella for ten organizations that report directly to

the president. Top positions are filled by presidential nomination with Senate confirmation. The three most important bodies are the Office of

Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisors and the National Security Council.

Institutions of National Government: What is the difference between authorization legislation and an

appropriations bill?

An authorization bill sets up a program and specifies how much money may be appropriated

for that program. It is the first step in appropriating money. The second step in the appropriations

procedure comes when the agency actually asks Congress to provide the money it authorized. This

is the appropriations bill.

Institutions of National Government: What is the origin of the claim of presidential executive privilege?

Executive privilege allows the president to withhold information from the courts or Congress. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that such a claim

was valid when sensitive military or diplomatic matters wee involved, but it refused to recognize an

“absolute unqualified” presidential privilege of immunity. The Constitution makes no mention of

executive privilege.

Institutions of National Government: How has the executive branch

consolidated power in the area of intelligence and foreign policy?

A new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2002 to

consolidate immigration policy, border control and airport security. In 2004, Congress passed a law creating a new cabinet level position, the Director of Intelligence, to coordinate the 15 intelligence

agencies in the government.

Institutions of National Government: What are the non-legislative powers of

Congress?

The non-legislative powers of Congress include electoral powers, in the case of the failure of the electoral college; impeachment powers, which

allow formal charges to be brought in the House; executive powers, which allow the Senate to

approve appointments and confirm treaties; and investigative and oversight powers, which allow

Congress to oversee the executive branch.

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Institutions of National Government: How is the power of a bureaucratic agency

determined?

The power of a bureaucracy lies in its ability to make autonomous decisions. The bureaucracy has discretionary authority in three major areas: paying

subsidies to groups and organizations (such as farmers, schools, hospitals or veterans), transferring

money from the federal government to state and local government (through grant-in-aid programs),

and devising and enforcing regulations (such as FCC licenses or drug approvals)

Institutions of National Government: What is the size and scope of the federal

bureaucracy?

Several million civil servants work directly for the federal government, but over five times as many

work indirectly as employees of business firms or nonprofit organizations that receive federal contracts, or as state and local governments

working under federal mandates.

Institutions of National Government: How is the vice president replaced without

a popular election?

The president nominates a new vice president, who assumes the office when both house of Congress approve the nomination. A vice president who

assumes the presidency then nominates a new vice president who is also confirmed by Congress.

Institutions of National Government: What two events changed the nature of

public trust in the presidency and Congress?

The first event was the Vietnam War. Press coverage of the Vietnam War, including body

counts and war footage shown on TV for the first time, changed the way the public viewed foreign policy and the presidency. The second pivotal event was the press coverage of the Watergate scandal and the revelations of corruption in the

White House.

Institutions of National Government: What are the president’s four options when

a bill has passed through Congress?

The president can sign it, the president can veto it, the president can do nothing and the bill will

become law within 10 days (in the middle of a congressional session), or the president can do

nothing and the bill will die if it is ten days from congressional adjournment (a pocket veto).

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Institutions of National Government: What are legislative vetoes? Are they

constitutional?

Legislative vetoes are a method by which Congress, in either one or both houses, blocks a

proposed executive action. Vetoes are frequently used for presidential reorganization plans of the executive branch. These vetoes were declared

unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha (1983), when the Supreme Court decided that they violated the

doctrine of separation of powers.

Institutions of National Government: What are the constitutional requirements to

run for the Senate?

A person must be 30 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for 9 years and a resident of the state in question.

Institutions of National Government: What are government corporations?

Government corporations are a blend of private corporations and government agencies. They have more control over their budgets than do traditional

agencies, but are ultimately controlled by the government. Examples include AMTRAK, the

TVA, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Institutions of National Government: How is the president able to bypass

Congress in policy and treaty making?

The president has the power to make executive orders, or rules that have the force of law and that

do not require congressional approval. The president also has the ability to make executive agreements with foreign nations to bypass the Senate’s role of offering advice and consent to

treaties.

Institutions of National Government: What is the excepted service?

The excepted service makes up almost half of all federal workers. They are not chosen by the Office of Personnel Management, and are largely chosen

for non partisan reasons. Some are hired by agencies that have their own selection procedures,

and some, about 3 percent, are legal exceptions selected by the president for policymaking and

politically sensitive posts.

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Institutions of National Government: What are the historic trends of presidential

popularity during terms of office?

With the exceptions of Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton, every president has lost popular support

between inauguration and departure from office. A president’s popularity tends to be highest

immediately following election or reelection. The first hundred days of a presidency tend to be the most productive from a legislative standpoint.

Institutions of National Government: What is presidential impoundment?

Impoundment is the presidential practice of refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress.

The Budget Reform Act of 1974 requires the president to spend all appropriated funds, unless

Congress approves all impoundments.

Institutions of National Government: How are federal programs implemented?

Federal programs are mainly carried out by the states. In most cases, the federal government

provides the money and general guidelines, but the administration of the programs is left up to the

states.

Institutions of National Government: What is the imperial presidency?

The historian Arthur Schlesinger coined the term imperial presidency in the early 1970s to reflect the

fact that the presidency was asserting increasing amounts of dominance over foreign and domestic policymaking. The institution of the presidency

was very strong in the years following WWII through Vietnam.

Institutions of National Government: How were members of the Senate

originally chosen?

Members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures until 1913, when the passage of the 17th

Amendment required the direct election of senators.

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Institutions of National Government: How does the president have an advantage

over Congress in influencing public opinion?

The bully pulpit is a tool the president uses to influence public opinion that is unavailable to

Congress. The president can appeal directly to the people through televised speeches, press

conferences and other events—e.g. trips abroad.

Institutions of National Government: What is gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is the process of dividing out congressional districts, following the census, to favor one political party or group over another.

Institutions of National Government: List at least three constitutional differences between the House of Representatives and

the Senate.

The House initiates all revenue bills, brings impeachment charges, passes articles of

impeachment, serves two-year terms, and is apportioned by population. The Senate confirms presidential appointments, holds impeachment

trials, is elected to six-year terms, has equal representation from each state and approves

treaties.

Institutions of National Government: How does the 1996 Welfare Reform Act balance the budgetary restraints of the

federal and state governments?

The act is a landmark piece of legislation that devolves welfare payment responsibilities from the

federal legislatures, funded by taxes, to the individual state governments, who receive block grants and are required to create individualized

programs.

Institutions of National Government: Name the departments that make up the

cabinet.

The cabinet consists of the Departments of State, Defense, Agriculture, Transportation, Interior,

Justice, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor, Commerce, Education, Energy, Veterans Affairs

and Homeland Security.

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Institutions of National Government: When was the only time in history that the presidency and the vice presidency were held by appointed, not elected, officials.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned amidst charges of bribery. President Nixon

appointed Gerald Ford in his place. The following year, Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford took the oath of office to

become president, having never been elected. Ford then appointed Nelson Rockefeller his new vice

president.

Institutions of National Government: How does Congress act to constrain the

bureaucracy?

Mainly through laws. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 stipulates that before

adopting new rules, hearings must be held. The Freedom of Information Act of 1966 gives citizens

the right to inspect all government records. The Privacy Act of 1974 requires all government files

about individuals to be kept confidential. The Open Meeting Law of 1976 ensures that all agency

meetings are open to the public.

Institutions of National Government: What salary and benefits do the president

and vice president receive?

Effective January 1, 2001, the annual salary of the president was $400,000 per year, including a

$50,000 expense allowance. The salary of the vice president is currently $202,900. Former presidents receive an annual pension of $151,800 plus up to $150,000 a year to maintain an office and staff.

Institutions of National Government: What are the benefits of being a member

of Congress?

Apart from the base salary, representatives receive an allowance to hire up to 22 staff members, travel allowances, a housing allowance, and the privilege to send free mail, known as the franking privilege.

Institutions of National Government: What are the most common criticisms of

the bureaucracy?

The most common criticisms are that bureaucracy promotes excessive rules, regulations and

paperwork; that is fosters interagency conflict; that tasks are duplicated by various agencies; that there is too much waste and unchecked growth; and that

there is a lack of accountability.

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Institutions of National Government: What methods do presidents use to

organize the White House bureaucracy?

Nixon and Reagan used the pyramid model, in which there is a strict hierarchy. Assistants report

through a chief of staff. It is efficient, but the president may become isolated and miss out on a

variety of viewpoints. Clinton and Carter utilized a circular model in which the president has more

direct contact with a wider variety of aides, assistants, and cabinet members.

Institutions of National Government: What factors have contributed to the

increase in size and power of the bureaucracy?

Part of the cause is the increase in population. More people and more urbanization mean that more services are demanded from the government. The

bureaucracy has also expanded in response to economic and political crises, such as the Great Depression and the Cold War. Another factor is

the desire of presidents and members of Congress to provide more services to constituents.

Institutions of National Government: What does it mean to run for Congress by

running against Congress?

Many people believe that Congress is broken and incapable of effectively solving the problems of the nation in a timely fashion. Therefore, when people run for office, they position themselves as outside the institution, ready to effect change and fix what

is broken within the institution.

Institutions of National Government: Some historians believe that presidents are successful when they can persuade what

five constituencies?

The most important constituencies are the public, executive officialdom, Congress, the partisans and

foreign leaders and publics.

Institutions of National Government: What are the constitutional roles of the

president?

The president is the commander in chief (military), the economic planner (budgetary), the chief legislator (sets agenda), the chief diplomat (treaties), and head of state (ceremonial).

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Institutions of National Government: What are the composition and functions of

the White House office?

The White House office consists of personal assistants to the president. These aides oversee the political and policy interests of the president and do

not require Senate confirmation. There are over 500 employees in the White House. The chief of staff and the press secretary are the most visible

members of the White House staff.

Institutions of National Government: How is presidential power limited by the

War Powers Act of 1973?

The War Powers Act compels the president to notify Congress within 48 hours if troops have been

placed in hostile situations and to seek congressional approval after troops have been in

combat for 60 days.

Institutions of National Government: What are some suggestions for reforming

bureaucracy?

Some suggestions include limiting appointments to fixed terms, requiring reexaminations and periodic

performance reviews, making the firing of a bureaucrat easier, requiring employee initiative, and rotating professionals into the bureaucracy

from the private sector.

Institutions of National Government: What is an agency point of view?

People who work in a bureaucratic organization tend to identify with the goals and culture of their agency. The workers in these agencies tend to see

the world through the lens of their agency, and often display fierce loyalty to it.

Institutions of National Government: What is the practice of senatorial courtesy,

and when is it used?

Senatorial courtesy is used when presidents appoint judges. Presidents often defer to senators of their own party to suggest nominees for federal district

court vacancies in senators’ home states.

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Institutions of National Government: What are issue networks?

Issue networks utilize members of many different segments of political society to formulate policy on

a certain issue. The participants include Washington-based interest groups, congressional staffers, members of Congress, members of the

bureaucracy, university faculty, experts participating in think tanks, representatives of the

mass media, political consultants, and lawyers.

Institutions of National Government: What is the difference between executive

agencies and independent or quasi-independent agencies?

Executive agencies include the Commission on Civil Rights, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and all cabinet departments. The president

can remove the leader of these agencies at any time. Independent or quasi-independent agency

leaders serve for fixed terms and cannot be removed by the president. These agencies include

the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Communications Commission, among others.

Institutions of National Government: Where does most of the work take place in

Congress?

Most legislative work is accomplished in small committees that specialize in policy areas. There

are subcommittees that take on even more specialized tasks to hold hearings on pending

legislation, debate passage of proposed bills and vote.

Institutions of National Government: Is the legislative veto a constitutional use

of presidential power?

No. The legislative veto was declared unconstitutional in Immigration and Naturalization

Service v. Chadha (1983), which stated that Congress cannot take any actions having the force

of law unless the president agrees.

Institutions of National Government: How does the president influence the

bureaucracy?

Agencies are accountable to the president, and the president can push policy preferences through these agencies by appointing senior bureaucrats, issuing executive orders, proposing additions or cuts to an agency’s budget, and reorganizing or combining

agencies as a reward or punishment.

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Institutions of National Government: How does the electoral college system

choose the president?

The electoral college includes 538 electors. Each state has as many electors as it has senators and

representatives in Congress. To be elected president or vice president, a candidate must win at

least 270 of the 538 votes. The party whose candidate receives the largest popular vote in a

state wins all of that state’s electoral college votes.

Institutions of National Government: Is Congress representative of the

population of the U.S.?

Not really. The average lawmaker in the U.S. is white, male, middle aged and Protestant, which is

hardly representative of the population. In the 109th

Congress, there were 68 women, 42 African Americans, and 24 Hispanics in the House of

Representatives (out of 435 total members), and only 14 women, one African American and two Hispanics in the Senate (out of one hundred total

members).

Institutions of National Government: What are the constitutional qualifications to run for the House of Representatives?

A person must be 25 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for seven years, and a resident of the state (but not

necessarily the district) in question.

Public Policy

Public Policy: How does the legislative branch influence

the formulation of the federal budget

After Congress receives and debates the budget package formulated by the Office of Management and Budget and the president, Congress modifies

the president’s proposal. Congressional committees hold hearings, analyze the budget

proposals, and by September offer budget resolutions that must be passed by September 15. Congress then sends the bills to the president for

approval.

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Public Policy: How does the bureaucracy provide social

welfare to needy citizens?

Since 1996, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program replaced the Aid to

Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, giving fixed block grants to the states to design their own welfare programs. Whatever the

states do not spend on their own programs, they can keep.

Public Policy: What is fiscal policy?

Fiscal policy is the policy of taxation and spending that makes up the nation’s economic policy and is

designed to improve the overall economic health of the nation.

Public Policy: What role does Congress play in the

formation of foreign policy?

Congress plays a role in the development of foreign policy by making recommendations to the president

on foreign relations, approving treaties, and approving nominations of ambassadors.

Public Policy: How much of federal revenue is derived from income taxes? Corporate income

taxes?

The individual income tax is the federal government’s biggest source of revenue. About forty-five cents of every dollar the government

collects comes from this source. People also pay state income tax. Only 10 percent of federal

revenue is derived form corporate income taxes.

Public Opinion: What are the key steps in the budget-

making process?

First, House and Senate budget committees review the major provisions of the president’s budget

proposals. These committees prepare a concurrent resolution that shows the total federal spending and

tax plan for the coming fiscal year. Nest, various House and Senate committee fit the spending and taxing plans with existing programs. The House

then passes and appropriations bill, officially setting aside money for all expenditures approved.

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Public Opinion: What is the debate over deregulation in

economic policy?

In the 1970s and 1980s, economic regulations came under fire as anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

Many people saw regulating agencies as protecting the industries’ profit margins rather than the pubic

good. The fervor over economic deregulation seems to be waning, though, as consumer

protection is gaining popularity.

Public Policy: How does the Federal Reserve Board use the money supply to manipulate monetary

policy?

The Federal Reserve Board can manipulate monetary policy by altering the reserve requirement (the amount of deposits member banks are required

to keep in hand and not loan out), changing the discount rate (the rate of interest that member

banks have to pay to borrow money from the Fed), and buying and selling securities in the open

market.

Public Policy: Even though there is no national healthcare

system in the United States, the largest portion of government spending is for

what entitlement program?

The Medicare and Medicaid programs account for the largest portion of government spending.

Public Policy: What is the difference between

discretionary and no-discretionary spending?

Discretionary spending refers to expenditures on programs and projects bases on chives made by

government planners. Non-discretionary spending refers to expenditures required by existing laws for current programs without debate or discussion. In

recent years, the percentage of discretionary spending has decreased while the percentage of

non-discretionary spending has increased.

Public Policy: How is the federal budget formulated?

First, each federal agency submits a detailed estimate of its need for the year to the Office of Management and Budget. Then the OMB hold meetings to coordinate all requests into a single

budget request, which the president will then submit to Congress in January or February.

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Unit IV Review Sheet: Chapters 12-15, Government Institutions & Budget Congress

Trustee vs. Delegate vs. Politico philosophies Enumerated vs. Implied Powers Oversight

o Standing Committees oversee the bureaucracy’s implementation of legislation House v. Senate Differences

o House Initiates Revenue (Tax) Billso Senate Confirmation (advice & consent) Powero Senate Treaty Ratificationo Impeachment procedure

-HOUSE impeaches and SENATE removes with 2/3 vote House v. Senate Elections

o 17th Amendmento Party of President loses seats in midterm

-1994 Republican Revolution example Power of incumbency

o Name recognitiono Caseworko Franking Privilegeo Congressional Staffo Term Limits?

How does a bill become a law?o Pork (Riders, Earmarks, or Amendments)o Closed v. Open Ruleso Log Rolling (Reciprocity or Horse-trading)o Filibuster (not in the Constitution)o Cloture

Committeeso Chairs & Seniority Ruleo Standing vs. Select Committee

-Appropriations Committee-Ways and Means Committee-House Rules Committee

o Conference Committee Congressional Leadership

o Speaker of the House, Senate Majority leadero Whips

Congressional Districtso Reapportionmento Redistrictingo Gerrymandering

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Baker v. Carr and Wesberry v. Sanders Shaw v. Reno

President of the United States Mandate Theory Presidential Approval Ratings

o Honeymoon Period (1st 100 days) Two Presidencies (Foreign & Domestic) 8 Roles of the Presidency Formal Powers

o Veto Pocket Veto Line Item Veto

Clinton V. NYC Legislative Veto

o Appointment Powerso State of the Uniono Reprieves and Pardonso Commander and Chief

War Powers Acto Make Treaties

Inherent (informal) powerso Bully Pulpito Cabineto Executive Orderso Executive Agreementso Executive Privilege

US v. Nixon When can a bill become law without signature? Cabinet vs. White House Staff Budget and Impoundment Control Act, 1974 Presidential Succession (25th Amendment) Imperial Presidency (Unitary presidency, signing statements)

Bureaucracy Types of Bureaucratic Entities – know the distinction between and examples of each type

o Cabineto Independent Regulatory Agencieso Independent Executive Agencieso Government Corporations

How do civil servants get and keep their jobs?o Patronage (Spoils System)

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o Pendleton Act Civil Service Merit Principle

o How do political appointees get their jobs? Plum Book

o Who can the president fire in the bureaucracy? How do Independent Regulatory Agencies have quasi-government powers?

o Separation of Powers issue Tug-of-war between Congress & the President for Control of the Bureaucracy How does the bureaucracy implement public policy? The size(scope) of the federal bureaucracy Fragmentation Deregulation Privatization Sunshine legislation Sunset legislation Iron Triangle Issue Networks

Budget Fiscal vs. monetary policy Socialism vs. Capitalism (Laissez-Faire Economics) Mixed Economy Supply-Side Economics (Trickle Down or Reaganomics) Budget

o Incremental Budgeting o Deficito National Debto Discretionary Spendingo Entitlements o Uncontrollable Expenditureso Office of Management and Budget o CBO

Revenueo Taxes

Income Tax Flat Tax Graduated Tax Regressive Taxes FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act)

Social Security + Medicare

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Employees and Companies pay into Caps out at around $120,000

o Borrowing Federal Expenditures

o Social Security Sustainability Issues

o Defenseo Medicare

Sustainability Issueso Medicaid

Tax expenditures Monetary Policy

o The Federal Reserve (Feds)o Chairmen of the Federal Reserveo Ways to affect Monetary Policy

Treasury Bonds Discount Rate Reserve Requirements

MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.1) The framers of the Constitution conceived of the ________ as the center of policymaking in America. 1) ____ A) Congress B) Supreme Court C) President D) bureaucracy E) President's cabinet

2) ________ privileges refers to the free use of the mails enjoyed by Congress. 2) _______ A) Conmail B) E-mail C) Procurement D) Franking E) Junket

3) Incumbents are those 3) _______ A) retired members of Congress. B) who have been defeated in an election. C) running for office for the first time. D) already holding office. E) running for an office.

4) The single most important advantage to someone trying to get elected to Congress is 4) _______ A) having a clean record. B) being an incumbent.

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C) having more money to spend on campaigning. D) being charismatic and photogenic. E) winning the endorsement of the top leaders of their party.

5) Compared to members of the House, senators are 5) _______ A) less likely to face difficult re-election opponents. B) more likely to face difficult re-election opponents. C) more likely to have personal contact with their constituents. D) less likely to use television in their re-election campaigns.

6) Reasons why incumbent senators have greater competition than incumbent members of the House include all of the following reasons EXCEPT 6) _______ A) Voters are less likely to know the issue positions of their senators than their representatives. B) Senators tend to draw more visible challengers. C) Senators have less personal contact with their constituencies. D) An entire state is more diverse than a Congressional district, providing more of a base for opposition. E) Senate challengers are better funded than House challengers.

7) Federal grants and contracts that members of Congress try to obtain for their constituents are collectively referred to as 7) _______ A) perquisites. B) affirmative action. C) casework. D) public service. E) the pork barrel.

8) An example of casework by a member of Congress is 8) _______ A) voting for a bill desired by constituents. B) working with a caucus on a public policy that affects his or her constituents. C) helping a constituent gain citizenship. D) writing a newsletter to send out to constituents. E) all of these

9) The pork barrel and casework are examples of 9) _______ A) advertising techniques. B) position-taking. C) opportunities for credit-claiming by members of Congress. D) Congressional continuity. E) descriptive representation.

10) After each federal census, 10) ______ A) the size of Congress increases. B) the membership of the House is reapportioned C) the office of the Speaker of the House changes hands. D) the Senate reapportions its membership. E) All of the above.

11) When Political Action Committees contribute money to members of Congress they are usually seeking 11) __ A) to create a more pluralistic Congress. B) access to policymakers.

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C) votes on specific legislation. D) to install a preferred challenger in office. E) to literally buy opposing legislators' votes.

12) Bicameralism means that a legislative body is one 12) ______ A) in which there are only two political parties. B) in which each state has two senators, providing equal representation of the states. C) in which incumbents have a better chance of being re-elected, providing continuity in policymaking. D) that must share power with a president, providing more efficient policymaking. E) with two houses, providing checks and balances on policymaking.

13) The House ________ Committee reviews most bills coming from other committees before they go on to the full House, thus performing a traffic cop function. 13) ______ A) Review B) Rules C) Authorization D) Ways and Means E) Appropriations

14) Which of the following is TRUE about the Senate as compared to the House? 14) ______ A) more influential on the budget B) smaller in number, less powerful and less prestigious C) seniority more important in determining power D) more centralized with stronger leadership E) more influential in foreign affairs

15) According to the Constitution, revenue bills must originate in the 15) ______ A) Senate. B) Treasury Department. C) Internal Revenue Service. D) Federal Reserve System. E) House.

16) The filibuster 16) ______ A) is unique to the Senate. B) has been ruled unconstitutional. C) is allowed in both the House and the Senate. D) has been prohibited in both the House and Senate. E) is unique to the House.

17) __________ members present and voting can halt a filibuster by voting for cloture. 17) ______ A) 70 B) 80 C) 51 D) 60

18) Which of the following does the Speaker NOT play a role in? 18) ______ A) recommending which members should be expelled from the House for failure to support the party's positions on bills B) assigning most bills to committees C) presiding over the House when it is in session D) making committee assignments E) appointing the party's legislative leaders

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19) Most of the business of Congress takes place 19) ______ A) on the floor of the House and Senate. B) in the Rules committees. C) in Congressional districts. D) in committees and subcommittees. E) during evening social functions.

20) When the House and the Senate pass different versions of the same bill 20) ______ A) the Senate bill is changed to conform with the House bill. B) a conference committee is appointed to resolve differences. C) the President may select which bill to enact into law. D) a joint committee is appointed to resolve differences. E) the House bill is changed to conform with the Senate bill.

21) Legislative ________ is the process of monitoring the bureaucracy and its administration of policy. 21) _____ A) franking B) oversight C) overview D) stonewalling E) supremacy

22) Impeachment is roughly the political equivalent of a(n) 22) ______ A) guilty verdict. B) firing. C) indictment in criminal law. D) exoneration. E) admission of guilt.

23) In order to impeach a President, it takes 23) ______ A) a 2/3 vote in the Senate. B) a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court. C) a 2/3 vote in the House of Representatives. D) a majority vote in the House of Representatives. E) a majority vote in the Senate.

24) In order to convict and remove an impeached President, it takes 24) ______ A) a majority vote in the House of Representatives. B) a 2/3 vote in the Senate. C) a 2/3 vote in the House of Representatives. D) a majority vote in the Senate. E) both B and D

25) The Constitution framers 25) ______ A) were united in wanting a chief executive similar to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. B) were unanimous in wanting a single President to lead the country.

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C) hoped to create a monarchy in the United States D) generally wanted a President with limited authority and responsibilities. E) were united in wanting a strong chief executive.

26) The President's power can best be understood as 26) ______ A) originally intended to be unlimited and absolute, but gradually weakened over time. B) unlimited and absolute. C) always the dominant figure in the American political system. D) very limited and largely ceremonial. E) shared with other branches of government as part of the Madisonian system of checks and balances.

27) Which of the following is NOT a constitutional power of the President? 27) ______ A) serve as Commander in Chief of the armed forces B) enact legislation by issuing decrees C) sign or veto legislation passed by Congress D) appoint federal judges with the advice and consent of a majority of the Senate E) All of these are the President's constitutional powers.

28) The President has the constitutional authority to make treaties with other nations, subject to the agreement of A) 2/3 of the Senate. B) 2/3 of the House. C) a majority of the House. D) a majority of both the House and the Senate. E) a majority of the Senate.

29) A primary resource available to Presidents for controlling the bureaucracy is 29) ______ A) the power to appoint top-level administrators. B) their unlimited power to offer patronage positions in the bureaucracy. C) their ability to dismiss or fire most members of the bureaucracy. D) control of the federal budget. E) all of these

30) The Constitution gives the President the power to influence the legislative process through his responsibility to A) direct the business of Congress and initiate impeachment. B) report on the state of the union and veto acts of Congress. C) recommend legislation and make appointments. D) manage the economy, lead the party, and deal with national crises. E) make laws by decree without the consent of Congress in some situations.

31) Presidential coattails refers to 31) ______ A) the formal constitutional powers of the President. B) voters casting their ballots for Congressional candidates of the President's party who will support the President. C) withholding of Presidential favors from those who oppose the President's policies. D) the ability of members of Congress to hide behind the President on tough issues. E) Presidential favors to those who support the President's policies.

32) A mid-term election is 32) ______ A) a special election that may remove an official from office in the middle of their term.

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B) a Congressional election that is not accompanied by a Presidential election. C) a Presidential election that occurs during a session of Congress. D) held every two years. E) one in which the incumbent is running for re-election.

33) The War Powers Resolution 33) ______ A) gave the President the formal power to declare war in the case of nuclear attack. B) established the code protocols that launch nuclear missiles in order to prevent accidental or unauthorized missile launches. C) prohibited the President power from committing American troops without Congressional approval. D) established the chain of command of the armed forces in the event the President is incapacitated. E) mandated the withdrawal of forces after 60 days unless Congress declares war or grants an extension.

34) Some believe the War Powers Resolution could be successfully overturned by the Supreme Court because it _ A) was vetoed by President Nixon. B) was not ratified within the constitutionally mandated seven-year period. C) interferes with the President's power to declare war. D) was really aimed at the Vietnam War only. E) uses a legislative veto, which may violate the separation of powers.

35) The ultimate weapon in the President's arsenal of resources to influence Congress is probably 35) ______ A) media support. B) interest group support. C) the support of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Board. D) mobilization of the public. E) her/his fundraising ability.

36) Which of the following is TRUE about the federal bureaucracy? 36) ______ A) Most federal bureaucrats work in Washington, D.C. B) The size of the federal bureaucracy has grown dramatically over the past 20 years. C) Most Americans are dissatisfied with their encounters with bureaucrats. D) The state and local governments have far more employees than the federal bureaucracy. E) all of these

37) ________ is a hiring and promotion system based on knowing the right people, working in an election campaign, making large political donations, and/or having the right connections to win jobs with the government. A) The federal Civil Service B) The bureaucracy C) Administrative discretion D) The golden gate E) The patronage system

38) When members of Congress hold a hearing to question a cabinet member on how a law is being carried out, they are engaging in 38) ______ A) filibustering. B) Congressional administration. C) casework. D) legislative oversight.

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E) agenda-setting.

39) Which of the following offices is responsible for making economic projections about the performance of the economy, the costs of proposed policies, and the economic effects of taxing and spending alternatives? 39) ____A) Congressional Research Service B) Congressional Budget Office C) Ways and Means Committee D) General Accounting Office

40) The Hatch Act, passed in 1940, 40) ______ A) established the federal Civil Service. B) prohibited the President from firing the heads of independent executive agencies. C) required the publication of the plum book. D) established the patronage system for federal employment. E) prohibits federal Civil Service employees from active participation in partisan politics.

41) The rationale for the civil service rests on the 41) ______ A) the need to separate military institutions from civilian institutions to prevent undue military influence. B) need for job replacements when a new party comes to power. C) goal of centralizing government employment at the federal level. D) General Schedule rating system for patronage appointees. E) desire to create a nonpartisan government service and promotion on the basis of merit.

42) The plum book lists 42) ______ A) job openings in the prestigious Office of Personnel Management. B) all civil service jobs above GS-12. C) all federal contracts available for bid. D) appeals filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board. E) top federal jobs available by Presidential appointment.

43) The classic conception of a bureaucracy was advanced by ________ , who argued that the bureaucracy was a "rational" way for a modern society to conduct its business. 43) ______ A) Thomas Jefferson B) Max Weber C) James Madison D) John Locke E) Charles L. Schultze

44) The largest federal agency based on dollars spent is the 44) ______ A) State Department. B) Department of Justice. C) Social Security Administration. D) Department of Defense. E) Department of Health and Human Services.

45) The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Reserve Board are examples of 45) ______ A) independent regulatory agencies. B) government corporations. C) dependent Presidential boards. D) Cabinet departments. E) independent executive agencies.

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46) Independent regulatory agencies have 46) ______ A) no formal ties to either the President or the Congress. B) complete independence from the President, but their policymakers are appointed by Congress. C) powerful rule-making, dispute-settling, and enforcement authority. D) no real enforcement power any more, and remain today as part of the federal government only in a ceremonial role. E) governing commissions composed of long-time federal Civil Service employees.

47) Amtrak and the United States Postal Service are examples of 47) ______ A) independent regulatory agencies. B) independent executive agencies. C) executive commercial agencies. D) government corporations. E) Cabinet departments.

48) Once a policy decision has been made, such as by passing a legislative act or issuing an executive order, the bureaucracy is responsible for 48) ______ A) judging its merits. B) funding it. C) its implementation. D) its ratification. E) its deregulation.

49) Creating new agencies, developing guidelines, and coordinating resources to achieve a policy goal is called 49) A) regulation. B) policymaking. C) implementation. D) bureaucratization. E) actualization.

50) Which of the following would not be considered a street-level bureaucrat? 50) ______ A) a welfare worker B) a police officer C) an assistant secretary in the Department of Transportation D) a municipal court judge E) a mail carrier who delivers mail exclusively in a high rise building

51) The use of government authority to control or change some practice in the private sector is known as 51 ___ A) public administration. B) regulation. C) executive review. D) socialism. E) oversight.

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52) When Congress passes regulatory legislation for which it has established goals, it then 52) ______ A) grants power to regulatory agencies to develop guidelines and enforce compliance. B) establishes the guidelines that regulatory agencies must implement. C) grants interest groups the power to develop the rules governing the new policy. D) authorizes the President to use his administrative discretion to implement the legislation. E) assigns responsibility for administration to regulatory agencies and responsibility for enforcement to the courts.

53) One solution to the problem of the proliferation of regulatory agencies and policies has been 53) ______ A) the incentive system. B) budget cuts. C) deregulation. D) deproliferation. E) standard operating procedures.

54) Deregulation has resulted, at least in part, in each of the following EXCEPT 54) ______ A) the proliferation of government agencies B) an expensive bailout of the savings and loan industry C) environmental damage D) competitive airline fares

55) Which of the following is NOT a method a President can use to control the bureaucracy? 55) ______ A) appoint people to head an agency who share the President's goals and strategies B) rewrite statutes to make instructions clearer as to how policies are intended C) tinker with an agency's recommended budget D) issue executive orders or more informal requests

56) Executive orders are issued by 56) ______ A) members of the Senior Executive Service. B) any federal agency or department. C) Congress. D) independent regulatory agencies. E) the President.

57) Congress tries to control the bureaucracy through 57) ______ A) rewriting laws and budgets and holding hearings. B) the use of executive orders and appointments. C) the creation of "iron triangles." D) deregulation. E) all of these

58) A major problem for Presidents and Congress in controlling bureaucracies is the existence of 58) ______ A) the incentive system. B) Supreme Court rulings curbing the scope of their oversight. C) the plum book. D) standard operating procedures.

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E) "iron triangles."

59) An "iron triangle" is also referred to as 59) ______ A) an issue network. B) a government corporation. C) a subgovernment. D) a reverse diagonal. E) the alphabet soup of American government.

60) A(n) __________ consists of an administrative agency, an interest group, and a Congressional committee or subcommittee. 60) ______ A) independent executive agency B) issue network C) "iron triangle" D) administrative discretion triad E) triumvirate

61) A group of participants in bureaucratic policymaking with technical policy expertise and intellectual and emotional commitment to the issue is called 61) ______ A) an issue network. B) a subgovernment. C) an "iron triangle". D) a government corporation. E) a vested cohort.

62) A budget deficit occurs when expenditures exceed 62) ______ A) borrowing. B) appropriations. C) authorizations. D) revenues. E) inflation.

63) Which of the following is NOT currently one of the three major sources of federal revenue? 63) ______ A) borrowing B) excise taxes C) social insurance taxes D) personal income taxes

64) In order of decreasing amounts, the sources of federal revenue include 64) ______ A) individual income tax, excise tax, corporate income tax, and social insurance receipts. B) individual income tax, social insurance receipts, borrowing and corporate income tax. C) social insurance receipts, corporate income tax, individual income tax, and borrowing. D) corporate income taxes, personal income taxes, borrowing and social insurance taxes. E) borrowing, individual income tax, social insurance receipts, and corporate income tax.

65) Social Security taxes are 65) ______ A) levied and collected by state governments. B) paid for by employers only. C) paid for by employees only. D) paid for by employees and employers. E) taxes paid on Social Security benefits.

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66) The income tax is generally progressive, meaning that 66) ______ A) those with more income pay higher rates of tax on their income. B) it is a newer form of taxation than excise and sales taxes. C) it increases incrementally on an annual basis. D) those with more income pay more in taxes than those with less income.

67) The government borrows money principally by 67) ______ A) maintaining numerous departmental credit card accounts. B) selling bonds. C) printing more currency. D) obtaining loans from foreign governments. E) obtaining loans from the Federal Reserve.

68) Who can purchase United States government bonds? 68) ______ A) corporations B) mutual funds C) financial institutions D) citizens E) all of the above

69) The federal debt 69) ______ A) is the difference between the amount of annual tax receipts and government expenditures. B) consists of all the money borrowed over the years by the national government and still outstanding. C) is all money borrowed over the years by the federal government and owed to state governments. D) is money owed to foreign nations by the United States government when it imports more goods than it exports. E) is money owed by taxpayers to the United States government, but never paid.

70) ________ are revenue losses attributable to provisions of the federal tax laws which allow a special exemption, exclusion, or deduction. 70) ______ A) Tax dividends B) Tax expenditures C) Fiscal seepages D) Tax reductions E) Treasury bills

71) The federal income tax deduction for mortgage interest on an owner-occupied home is an example of a 71) ______ A) tax rebate. B) federally guaranteed loan. C) tax expenditure. D) negative income tax. E) tax refund.

72) The United States government's annual budget is now approximately 72) ______ A) $775 billion. B) $11.3 trillion. C) $2 trillion. D) $12 trillion.

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E) $15 trillion.

73) Compared to most other countries with developed economies, the national, state, and local governments in the United States tax 73) ______ A) about four times as heavily. B) about one and a half times as much per capita. C) less. D) about twice as heavily. E) at about the same rate.

74) In order of decreasing amounts, federal expenditures include 74) ______ A) national defense, direct payments to individuals, state and local grants, and interest on the national debt. B) direct payments to individuals, national defense, interest on the national debt, and state and local grants. C) national defense, interest on the national debt, direct payments to individuals, and state and local grants. D) tax expenditures, national defense, education, grants to state and local governments, interest on the national debt, and direct payments to individuals. E) interest on the national debt, national defense, direct payments to individuals, and state and local grants.

75) The biggest expenditure in the federal budget today is 75) ______ A) defense. B) foreign aid programs. C) interest on the debt. D) income security programs. E) welfare programs for the poor.

76) In 1965, ________ was added to the Social Security program to provide hospital and physician coverage to the elderly. 76) ______ A) disability B) Medicare C) Healthmark D) Medicaid E) Medplan

77) The biggest slice of the federal budget pie belongs to 77) ______ A) education aid. B) income security expenditures. C) health expenditures. D) law enforcement. E) national defense.

78) Which of the following is NOT associated with incremental budgeting? 78) ______ A) Most of the budget debate and attention is over an increase in the agency's funding. B) The budget for any given agency tends to grow a bit every year. C) An agency or program must prove it still merits its very existence every year. D) Agencies and programs tend to safely assume they will receive at least what they had last year.

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79) Social Security payments are an example of a(n) 79) ______ A) controllable expenditure. B) entitlement. C) increment. D) indexing. E) apportionment.

80) ________ is the biggest uncontrollable expenditure in the federal budget. 80) ______ A) The military budget B) Welfare for the poor C) The agricultural subsidy D) Social Security E) Foreign aid

81) An "uncontrollable" expenditure in the federal budget is defined as 81) ______ A) expenditures exceeding revenues so as to require borrowing to cover the difference. B) an expenditure that is required by current law or a previous government obligation to people automatically eligible for some benefit. C) one in which more money must be appropriated to handle a national crisis. D) an annual incremental increase in the cost of a program. E) the government's allowance for meeting budget requests.

82) Social Security programs, interest on the national debt, and military pensions are examples of 82) ______ A) tax loopholes. B) uncontrollable expenditures. C) tax expenditures. D) incremental expenditures. E) revenue sources.

83) An estimated ________ of the federal budget is considered uncontrollable, unless Congress changes a law or existing benefit levels. 83) ______ A) one-half B) one-fifth C) two-thirds D) 80% E) one-third

84) The ultimate power to determine how much the government will tax and spend, and what it will spend taxes for, lies with 84) ______ A) Congress. B) the courts. C) the President. D) the Treasury Department. E) the bureaucracy.

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85) To actually fund a program, Congress must pass an ________ bill. 85) ______ A) omnibus B) expenditure C) authorization D) appropriations E) impoundment

86) Which of the following would be a specific example of an appropriations bill? 86) ______ A) Congress voting to discontinue the federal income tax B) a bill to continue the space shuttle program for another five years C) a bill establishing a national health insurance system D) a bill funding the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year E) a budget resolution passed by both Houses of Congress

MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.1) A 2) D 3) D 4) B 5) B 6) A 7) E 8) C 9) C 10) B 11) B 12) E 13) B 14) E 15) E16) A 17) D 18) A 19) D 20) B 21) B 22) C 23) D 24) B 25) D 26) E 27) B 28) A 29) A

30) B 31) B 32) B 33) E 34) E 35) D 36) D 37) E 38) D39) B 40) E 41) E 42) E 43) B 44) C 45) A 46) C 47) D 48) C 49) C 50) C 51) B 52) A 53) C 54) A 55) B 56) E57) A 58) E 59) C 60) C 61) A 62) D 63) B

64) B 65) D 66) A 67) B 68) E 69) B 70) B 71) C 72) C 73) C74) B 75) D 76) B 77) B 78) C 79) B 80) D 81) B 82) B83) C 84) A 85) D 86) D

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