Download 1 - JustAnswer

1. Some analysts maintain that a Congress that is often beset by inaction and
localism poorly serves the United States. Supporters of the Congress maintain that
the institution is a superior deliberative and representative institution. Which
argument is the more persuasive and why?
While the United States Congress is a fine institution providing excellent representational
government, it is also a body that is slow, often inept, and almost casual in the way it
treats some of its major responsibilities. It is obvious to anyone who has ever sat and
watched congressional hearings that the factionalism and the need to protect one’s own
turf is more important to the members of the congress than debating and determining any
issue. And in fact, those few of us who have spent hours watching “debate” attended by
very few members and a whole lot of aides makes us less confident that the body will
ever actually debate anything on the floor of the house r the senate that will really matter
any more.
Age of the congress is the first sign that it is in trouble as a body to act and make honest
decisions. Take Robert Byrd, third in line to the Presidency. Now that he is the longest
serving Senator, he is also 92 years old. Are we really to expect that a group of men and a
few women, who are covering such a large age range that the oldest is almost 100, can
actually get out and do anything that matters? Should the third person in line for the
presidency be almost 100 years old in the first place? In fact, Byrd is known for the very
thing most of congress is known for: getting money for his state.
It is the very system of set-asides, money reserved for certain states and certain
representatives, that gives the U.S. Congress its worst reputation amongst government
watchers. They continue to hand out money to each other to bring back to their state to
spend that could well be used for other, more important things. In addition, they
continually provide funds to foreign countries as if the United States were the piggy bank
to the world. Money that could help people in the United States that need help. They
appear to be in the pockets of big business, accepting money from them for their
campaigns. Add the amount of time many spend not even in attendance and you have a
large number of people that are elected to do one thing but do another instead, mainly for
their own personal self-interest.
2. Discuss both the constitutional foundations of the presidency and how the
Framers addressed their concerns in the Constitution. How has the Executive
Branch grown and changed since its inception.
When the Framers put the U.S. Constitution together, they had many concerns on their
minds. They did not want a leader who would become a king, or its equivalent. They did
want someone who would lead not only the government, but also the military. They did
not want someone who was an alien to the country (even though many of them had
started that way) because it would open the government up to control by foreign powers.
They wanted someone who would have to regularly report to the elected officials who
might be closer to the people they represent, yet they wanted him to feel free to act,
develop, and fill necessary positions when no one else was in the Capital.
They succeeded at this by setting a lower age limit to ensure some certain level of
maturity, by allowing the president to make treaties as long as the Congress got to make
the final approval of them, and by giving him a Cabinet that could help and advise him in
making decisions so that he would not necessarily be influenced only by party politics but
also by the best and smartest men in specific fields that he could find. And to keep him in
line? He can be removed from office for certain crimes, tried by the Congress instead of
the courts where he may have been responsible for people getting some of their positions.
Since the original writing of the constitution, the role of the President has changed, even
though most of the rules mentioned have not. His advisors are extended from the Cabinet
to a larger group ranging from the National Security Agency to the individual branches of
the Units States Military to whatever other financial and Cabinet advisors he may feel he
needs. However, the largest change comes not from the role of the President in the United
States Government, but in his representation of that government to the entire world. His
ability to travel and make temporary decisions about what to do in disasters both here and
abroad has made the position one of such strength and power that it is hard to imagine.