Executive Branch Essay, Research Paper
President Woodrow Wilson once said the President, ?….is at liberty in law and
conscience…. to be as big a man as he can.?, and some Presidents have at times tried to be
more powerful and bigger than what the Founding Fathers had intended. I believe that it
is virtually impossible to live up to what the Founding Fathers had intended and that there
are only a few of our Presidents who have actually lived up to that statement. This can be
looked at through the roles played be the President, the powers of the President, and
limits that have been placed or attempted to be placed on the President.
When the President is sworn in, he/she becomes the most powerful person in the
nation and some have even said the most powerful person in the world. With this power
comes several roles and duties. Most of his/her duties are imposed in the Constitution,
while some are just accepted responsibilities. The President has to be the Chief of State,
in that they are a symbol of all American people. All American people. A task that is
extremely difficult to accomplish because the President must show the entire world what
it is like to be an American. The President must also become the Chief Executive and run
the entire executive branch of the federal government. This means that the President is
the head of ?carrying out the law? of the United States. He also becomes The Chief
Executive Planner, which must try to keep the annual budget for the entire United States.
The President will also assume the role of Chief Diplomat, which must speak to hundreds
of foreign countries and be a spokesman for the rest of the world. The President also gets
the job of Commander in Chief. With this role the President has to rule over all of
America?s armed forces. With all of the previous roles as well as Chief legislator, Chief
of Party, and Chief citizen, the President is put in one the toughest spots that a person
could be placed in and more weight on his shoulders than anyone can in America. All of
these roles and duties he must execute them.
The President is given a huge amount of power and must exercise that power
several times over their stint as President. They are given power to do everything
(executive, military, diplomatic, legislative, and judicial). They are responsible to do all
of these and make them run efficiently. Their most important power is to execute the
law. It is almost almost unattainable to do this with the amount of powers that he is given
because they must look over the other powers as well. Given all this power, Congress
then tries to limit the powers of the President as well.
Congress imposes acts so the President will not be allowed to perform some of his
regular duties. As if his job wasn?t hard enough, he must deal with keeping his peace in
the White House. He has all of his duties to carry out and has to deal with another branch
of government infringing upon his own privileges. Some say he must get fewer fringe
benefits but his other jobs should allow them.
The hardest job in the United States is being the President, and seemingly it is
virtually impossible for one person to live up to what the Founding Fathers had asked for.
The duties and roles alone are enough to keep the President busy for a single term in
office. This is not factoring his powers that are given to him, which he must carry out on
a day-to-day basis. And yet still Congress bothers him by being given limits placed on
him. For one person to be able to accomplish all these in a four year term is amazing and
to be expected to do all these things by the American public and our Founding Fathers is
outstanding.
Bibliography
just notes i got