How Powerful is the American President in Pursuing His Policies in Government?

Moving on to examine how effectively the President is in wielding his power when it comes to pursuing his policies within government. Congress is a powerful part of the U.S government and could and often did dominate the political agenda rather than the President (McKay, pg 172, 2001). This domination by congress could result in the congress to frequently reject the Presidents policies this is because the framers of the constitution made “a chief executive who was generally more a servant than a master of the national government” (McKeever, Zvesper, Maidment, pg 277, 1999). The power of the congress can be seen in the fact that the 1973 war powers act was passed by congress despite a presidential veto they simply overturned it by a two thirds majority (McKay, Pg188, 2001). However congress does concede the right of the President to set the political agenda in the annual state of the union address but it does not have to pass any legislation that the President puts forward in the address (McKeever, Zvesper, Maidment, pg 295, 1999).  The evidence above would seem to indicate that the president is going to have a difficult time in pursuing his policies this seems to be further supported by the fact that President Bush faces “big challenges in coming weeks and months, from legislative battles over energy, trade and immigration” (Stolberg, Kirkpatrick, 2005).

Furthermore President Clinton failed in pushing through his policy on health care reform it died of its own weight in congress due to a major criticism, being that it was too comprehensive to explain to the American People (Edwards and Wayne, pg 419, 1999). However not only do Presidents policies get defeated in congress they can also be changed quite dramatically. An example of this is “President Bush’s plan to extend tax cuts over the next five years ran into resistance in the senate on Wednesday as Republican leaders offered a budget for two thousand and six that would undo more than a fourth of the cuts that Mr Bush had requested” (Stolberg, Kirkpatrick, 2005). Domestic policy seems difficult for Presidents to pursue but on the other hand they seem to have more success with pursuing their foreign policies, as President Clinton was able to command the area of foreign policy. (Edwards, Wayne, pg 485, 1999). This can also be seen with the Iraq war scenario as President Bush had a policy of Pre-emption for Iraq and he pursued it because he is Commander in chief of the armed forces and was able to order the forces into Iraq without formally declaring war which is a power of the congress.

In conclusion the nature of the Presidents power has been examined and the power of the president has been shown to be power of persuasion, influence, imposing his will and one of threats. The President is quite impotent in pursuing his policies within the domestic arena as can be seen from the evidence presented in the essay. In contrast to this the President seems to be very successful in pursuing his policies within the foreign policy arena, as was the case with President Clinton and President Bush.