Bell Ringer
• Read the following quotes:
• "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more
and become more, you are a leader." -- John Quincy Adams
• “Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.”—H. Ross
Perot
• “Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like
anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to
pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”—Vince Lombardi
• “The price of greatness is responsibility.”—Winston Churchill
• Create your own sentence that summarizes what leadership should
be like.
The Presidency
Introduction
• The President is the most powerful person in the
world—agree or disagree?
– Kennedy, Johnson, Bush, and Clinton all sent troops into
battle without war declarations
– Nixon froze prices (and wages)
– Carter, Reagan, and Bush Jr. appointed most of the
Supreme Court
– Carter signed an arms limitation treaty with the Soviets—
not ratified by the Senate
– Reagan couldn’t test anti-satellite weapons and Congress
rejected his budget
– Clinton’s healthcare plan was ignored and he was
impeached
President v. Prime Minister
• Popularly elected president’s were created by
the US
– Of the 5 dozen countries with party competition
for leader, only 16 have direct elections (13 are in
N. or S. America)
• If he is not directly elected by the people, the
other option is to be chosen by Parliament
(which is what all of Europe has)
– Whichever party has the majority in Parliament
will be the party the prime minister is chosen from
President v. Prime Minister
• Obama was elected on the premise that he was a
“Washington outsider”
– Prime ministers have to be “insiders”
• Presidents choose cabinet members from outside
of Congress
– Britain’s Prime Minister selects all of his members
from Parliament
• Presidents may not have a “willing” Congress
– Prime Ministers are pulled from majority party in
Parliament, meaning likely compatibility between the
two branches
Divided Government
• Divided Government: legislative branch and
executive branch are controlled by different
parties
• Unified Government: legislative and executive
branch are controlled by the same party
– Only happened in 2001 (didn’t last entire
Congress) and 2009 (very strong) since 1969
• People complain that a divided government
leads to gridlock
Divided Government
• Some say that divided government creates
partisan bickering which prevents legislation
from being passed
– Many believe that divided government is not the
cause of gridlock, ideological difference is
– Gridlock however is a side effect of democracy—it
creates time to debate and forces compromise
The Powers of the President
• Serve as commander in chief
• Commission officers
• Grant reprieves/pardons for federal offenses
– What federal offense can he not pardon?
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Convene Congress in special session
Receive ambassadors
Take care that the laws are faithfully executed
“Executive power”
Appoint officials to lesser offices
The Powers of the President
• Shared powers between the President and
Senate
– Make treaties
– Appoint ambassadors, judges, high officials
• Shared powers between the President and
Congress as a whole
– Approve legislation
• Sounds kinda weak?
The Powers of the President
• How about now?
• The President has the
sole ability to drop
nuclear weapons
• And yet…“All the
President is, is a glorified
public relations man who
spends his time flattering,
kissing and kicking people
to get them to do what
they are supposed to do
anyway.”—Harry S
Truman
Qualifications
• Natural born citizen
• 35 years old
• Resident of the US for 14+ years
Benefits
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$400,000/year salary(taxable)
$50,000 (tax-free) expense account
Pension pay = cabinet member pay (taxable)
Staff and Secret service during/after presidency
White House staff = 400+
Camp David
Air Force One
Personal Chef
Benefits
Assignment
• Presidential Report Card
• Get into groups of 2-3
– Using your handout, determine who will do which
components of the project
– You will present this project on March 7/8.
Bell Ringer:
• Name five powers of the president. Be sure to
indicate if they are shared powers or exclusive
powers.
Vice President
• Two official jobs:
– Preside over Senate – original
– Presidential disability –
25th Amendment
• Two unofficial
– President’s “errand boy”
– President in waiting
Executive Branch
President
Executive Office
White House Office, OMB, NSA, Council of Economics,
VP
Cabinet Members
State, Treasury, Justice, Defense, Interior, Ag., Comm.,
Labor, HHS, HUD, Trans., Energy, Edu., Veteran,
Homeland Sec.
Independent Agencies
SEC, FTC, FCC, EPA, CBO, NASA
The Executive Office of the President
• Every officer, employee and agency is legally
subordinate to the President
– They exist to help the President exercise executive
power
– His right arm is the Executive Office of the
President
• Staffed by the President’s closest advisors and
assistants
• The White House is the “nerve center” of the
executive branch
Executive Branch
• Executive Office:
– Chief of Staff: controls daily access to president
and sets schedule
– Press Secretary: consults with media on
president’s activities
– Chief Counsel: presidential lawyer
– Office of Management and Budget: coordinates
federal budget, advises President
– National Security Council: includes Chairman of
Joint Chiefs of Staff and Security Advisor
The Executive Office of the President
• The President consults the National Security Council when
considering steps in foreign affairs
– The President is the chairperson
– Other members include the VP, Director of the CIA, and Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• The Department of Homeland Security is the newest EOP,
created after 9/11
– Its main job is to keep the President aware of any and all acts of
terrorism
• Other EOP agencies include Office of Management and
Budget, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Office of Economic
Advisors
The Executive Departments
• Much of the work done by the Federal
Government is by the 15 executive
departments
– Called the Cabinet departments
– The First Congress created 3 of the departments
(Treasury, War, State)
– As the workload of the increased, so has the
number of departments (some have been faded
out like War and replaced with Defense)
The Executive Departments
• Each Department is headed by a secretary
– Exception: Department of Justice is headed by the
Attorney General
• Each department head is the primary link
between the presidential policy and the
department
– They also strive to promote and protect their
department
• Each department has an assistant secretary as
well as personnel, etc.
The Executive Departments
• Each department is broken into subunits
Criminal Division
Of the Department
Of Justice
Capital Case Unit
Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs
Computer Crime
And Intellectual
Property
The Executive Departments
• The Veterans Health Administration is also a
subunit under Veterans Affairs
– It shows that most employees of the departments
work away from the nation’s capital (about 90%)
The Executive Departments
• Today, the departments vary widely
– The Department of State is the oldest and most
prestigious department but also among the smallest
– The Department of Defense is the largest with
670,000 civil workers and 1.4M military workers
– The Department of Health and Human Services has
the largest budget (accounts for 1/3 of all federal
spending)
– You can learn more about the various departments
and what they do in Chapter 14
The Executive Departments
• The Cabinet was not established by the
Constitution, rather it exists because of tradition
• Under the Bush Administration we have seen
even more people invited to Cabinet meetings
that are not traditionally invited
– This includes White House chief of Staff, US trade
representative and the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency
• Recap the Appointment process
Independent Agencies
• Since 1880, the Federal Government has had to
expand beyond the Cabinet Departments
– This lead to independent agencies
– Today there are nearly 150 of them
• Some of the reasons these agencies exist outside
of the departments is:
– They do not fit in a department (General Services
Administration-purchase supplies, land, equipment)
– Some are independent to avoid partisanship
– Because of the nature of their functions (regulatory
commissions)
Independent Agencies
• You can break independent agencies into three
categories:
– Independent Executive Agencies—organized much like
the Cabinet Departments, they just do not get Cabinet
status (NASA, EPA, all the way down to the small ones
like the American Battle Monuments Commission)
– Independent Regulatory Commissions—beyond the
reach of the President’s control-see Ch. 14 for a list
• Congress has given this group quasi-legislative and quasijudicial powers meaning that the rules of the SEC are legally
binding for those who sell stocks
Independent Agencies
• Finally, you have the Government Corporations
– They are under the President’s control but established by Congress to
run like a business
– Today there are more than 50 of them including:
• FDIC
• US Postal Service
• Amtrak
• Government Corporations can be set up like Private
Corporations, with a board of directors and a general manager
(CEO)
– Congress decides how/who runs the corporation
– Money comes from the government
– The Federal Government owns the stock