Presidential Powers

The Executive Branch in general today displays a type of leadership unique to America in my opinion, especially in the Federal level. The President has a very specific job, different from the monarchy forms that preceded it. I feel that our founding fathers would definitely be surprised however with today's government.

The President should exercise a checks and balances type of government, meaning one branch has power to overrule the other if enough comply. Today I feel that often the president tries to do the job of another branch, like create a law, or inflict punishment, where this would be more in the lines of a different branch. We talked about executive privilege and absolute power, and the president really does not have either. They have a job like any other and are expected to perform this job to the best of their ability without branching off, like we have seen with past presidents.

The governmental hierarchy is that of something called Federalism. The federal government holds an umbrella over the state and local governments, yet they are free to dictate themselves. Although the president is the Chief Executive Officer of America essentially, he or she does not have power to dictate directly within the state or local levels. Definitely there are issues which may be overruled or seen by the federal level, specifically the president, however the actual issues should remain within the lesser levels, like how I believe our Founding Fathers began this government.

Finally, the President is the Commander in Chief of the army, essentially leading the common people. He does not have the power to declare war, only Congress does. The President leads into battle, and serves in military affairs, likewise he is a legislator, he does not have power to make laws without the consent of two-thirds of both senate and the house of representatives. The President is undoubtedly the most powerful person in America, however he does not have absolute power. I find that recently especially some presidents do believe to be able to exercise that non-existent power, and as we have seen with presidents like Richard Nixon, they do not have the power to do whatever they please if it goes against the law as seen with Water Gate. I believe our Founding Fathers would be rather surprised to see how our Presidents are today as opposed to a hundred years ago, however the main concept remains, of a powerful, non-tyrannical leader chosen by a democratic election of the people's voice. That has stayed the same, therefore perhaps they would not be as upset because the prinicple is the same, the roles have just changed a bit

Congress and the Budget Process

My mom is an accountant, she works as senior supervising clerk for FIS, formerly Metavante. I often see her working late at night on our budget for my family of 6. She complains often on how difficult it is to manage our family's financial statements, our taxes etc, and she's a professional. Now imagine putting that to the entire nation of well over 300 million people? That is what our politicians crafting our budget are doing. As I experienced in the game there are thousands of combinations of cutting and expanding that all are working towards our goal of diminishing our national debt and increasing the GDP. Sometimes as I learned you have to spend in order to earn to improve our economy, like when I spent to improve funding for disadvantaged children and to make college more affordable in my simulation. Being very interested in education, I want to be a college professor, and have wanted to be my whole life pretty much I feel that is one way we boost our economy by improving the education of the next generation. However, obviously you have to make cuts, like military cuts, science, space exploration cuts, medicare, health care, and social security. As difficult as it is, I can see how raising the age of social security and medicare benefits for all by a couple years could potentially have a positive impact on our economy, while at the same time upsetting millions of Americans, likewise drilling for oil, or mining can create jobs and improve our GDP. All of these decisions are what go into our national budget, and I found out that it's the perfect combinations of spending and cutting that can create a positive effect.

Do we have too many rights, or too few?

Well after viewing the 10 presentations on the bill of rights it is very clear that we have a great number of rights, many of which we may not even know about. I personally believe we have the perfect amount of rights, however if I had to choose I would say perhaps too many. For example, in my court case of Tinker Vs. Des Moines, we have a couple teenagers speaking out against the war in Vietnam, I feel that yes we should have the right to express ourselves as we please, however I do not feel that what they were protesting, the message they were trying to get across was important enough for them to cause that much trouble, it is not like persecution of religion or racism or something like that, I felt they took it too far, likewise the rights of the accused are significantly more than I even imagined. One that I feel is a little questionable is searches and seizures. I believe even if you are searching for say guns and you happen to stumble upon illegal substances you should even without a warrant be able to use that as well, what are they supposed to do, ignore it? However I can see how it is not fair to just barge into a person's private property without valid reasoning. Finally, I was interested in freedom of assembly with the whole Westboro Baptist Church scenario, and I find it appalling, and yes they do have the right to assemble together in global persecution, however I still find it strange how they can go about and stir up such havoc. We have a multitude of rights that we take for granted, and I feel that if we didn't have as many we would perhaps straighten up and people would be more aware of their actions and perhaps a more peaceful existence, as opposed to more rights.