Exam 2 Study Guide Lectures 11 14 Lecture 11 October 8 What is the current event situation as of now The government shutdown looms on with no end in sight The shutdown may be protracted Right now the biggest worry for mainstream GOP law makers is a Tea Party challenge in the primaries However the shutdown could end now 19 GOP MCs support a clean CR and 200 Democrats which makes a majority Speaker will not bring a measure to vote unless it has a majority of party support This power of procedure is the ultimate power in congress On top of that the deadline for the debt ceiling is approaching Nobody really knows what a default would mean because America has never had to do this before Boehner warns that the house with a Republican majority will not pass a clean bill How did the Founding Fathers conceive of the presidency They did not want to concentrate power in one person King George was a bad example of this to them and gave them a basic fear of monarchies However they did want leadership in extraordinary times What they did is they gave ambiguous powers to the president which were open to interpretation and could go either way The founding fathers saw congress as a center pieces where the president was responsible for the faithful execution of laws passed by congress What made 20 21st century presidents different from earlier ones The power of the executive has grown over the years Part of this is due to individual leadership and expansive power public expectation also puts more power in the hands of the executive On top of that there is a huge increase in congressional delegation of authority The Commander in Chief clause and the take care clause give the executive broad interpretation of the constitutionally enumerated powers giving them more power should they choose to take it George Washington really set the precedent for the powerful presidency Abraham Lincoln also had a Quasi presidential dictatorship His power stretched so far beyond what was normal at the time He enacted martial law and suspended habeas corpus He admitted that this was unconstitutional but necessary to save the country Lecture 12 October 10 What is new in the news Boehner proposes to extend debt ceiling for 6 weeks The president wanted it to be extended for over a year but he got a short term compromise The house will do this only if president agrees to negotiate on spending cuts The proposal would keep the government shut down Establishment republicans feel that shutdown isn t too painful but don t want to risk default by not raising the debt ceiling Obama would sign a clean debt ceiling increase but only if Republicans reopen government some House republicans are at odds with the strategy but it is a pretty good deal Established republicans prefer that the debt limit and CR be handled together and feel the Obamacare defund delay strategy is hopeless On the other hand Tea partiers are upset because some were elected because they promised they would not raise the debt ceiling unless there were spending cuts Explain the Congressional delegation of authority Congress has given away some of its power away to the executive branch but why Controversial issues are often handed to the executive because they loathe to make unpopular decisions It can also be due to a technical issue because congressmen lack policy expertise Congress delegates to the executive branch bureaucracies because they know the devil is in the details Several examples on congressional delegation of authority are the Financial crisis and the Line item veto What is inside the beltway bargaining This is a process of negotiation and compromise and mutual accommodation and reciprocity There is no use of force This method was more common among earlier presidents Good bargainers were LBJ and Reagan also known as the great communicator Carter was not a good bargainer IBBs are less common than 30 years ago due to a heavily divided government Lecture 13 October 22 What is important about presidential approval ratings Approval ratings are Used it to try and get members of congress to go along with him Highest approval ratings for presidents is usually in first 3 6 months in office Going Public can be a rway to raise this It is not negotiating but more of an appeal to the public Forcing cooperation rather than bargaining Founding fathers didn t want to impassionate people and charge them up that could eventually lead to the trampling of the ruling minority What is Bureaucracy Bureaucracy is known as the fourth branch of government Bureaucrats take questions about things like safety and turn those things into actions and rules They provide a vague mandate for an agency and then the agency comes up with safe and unsafe practices for problem Bureaucracies are made up of cabinet departments where members are nominated by president and confirmed by the senate They are picked for expertise and will typically have a career that precedes them They are put in place to satisfy other partisan groups due to increased diversity What does agency creation help to do Since Institutions shape outcomes agency creation helps to control procedure which thereby allows one to control the outcome Advocacy lies behind every agency Most people prefer a strong agency isolated from political control Opponent groups don t even want the creation of an agency and will try to cripple it with rules and structures that prevent it from doing its job They do this by placing it under a hostile department Advocacy groups have low politicization and high efficacy opponent groups have high politicization and low efficacy and the president has high politicization and high efficacy in this regard Lecture 14 October 24 What are Iron Triangles Iron triangles justify that the relationship is not always antagonistic between agencies and members of congress Sometimes they share an interdependent mutually beneficial relationship between members of congress and bureaucrats Members of congress will give bureaucrats more funds if they like them and need their approval and help We care about iron triangles because they allow interest groups to dominate policy and contribute to inflated budgets for the bureaucracy How does one limit bureaucratic drift Presidential nomination power helps limit drift He only nominates less than 1 of bureaucrats When an appointee goes into an agency surrounded by natives and instead of helping presidential agenda he helps the agency and advocate on their behalf rather