Public Policy Roles of the President and Congress



Public Policy Roles of the President and Congress

Introduction

The United States Constitution divides public policy powers between the President and the Congress so that both share in the making of public policy. The executive and legislative branches each play important roles that are different but that often overlap. Both branches have continuing opportunities to initiate and change public policy, and the interaction between them continues indefinitely throughout the life of a policy. This report reviews and illustrates basic ways that the United States can make public policy. The practices illustrated in this report indicate that making public policy is a complex process, and that the support of both branches is required for a strong and effective U.S. public policy. This paper discusses how the President and Congress interact in the formation of public policy.

Analysis

Events have confirmed that together the President and Congress make public policy, but they have not resolved the question of which branch originates or finally determines policy. The two branches share in the process and each plays an important but different role. The question of who makes public policy does not have a more precise answer for several reasons.

First, U.S. public policy is not created in a vacuum as some sort of indivisible whole with a single grand design. Rather, making public policy is a prolonged process involving many actors and comprising dozens of individual policies toward different countries, regions, and functional problems (Mark Clyde, 1990). Second, the complex process of determining public policy makes it difficult to decide who should be credited with initiating or altering any particular public policy. The two branches constantly interact and influence each other. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to trace an idea back to its origin, determine when a proposal actually influences policy, and decide when a modification creates a new policy.

Third, the roles and relative influence of the two branches in making public policy differ from time to time according to such factors as the personalities of the President and Members of Congress and the degree of consensus on policy. Throughout American history there have been ebbs and flows of Presidential and congressional dominance in making public policy, variously defined by different scholars (Kenneth Katzman, 1991). One study classified the period 1789-1829 as one of Presidential initiative; 1829-1898 as one of congressional supremacy, and 1899 through the immediate post World War II period as one of growing Presidential power. 4 Another study defined three periods of congressional dominance, 1837-1861, 1869-1897, and 1918-1936, with a fourth one beginning toward the end of the Vietnam War in 1973. During the Reagan and Bush Administrations the pendulum swung back toward Presidential dominance, reaching its height in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq. 6 In the post-Persian Gulf war era, both President and the Congress are confronted with issues in public policy that may well define which branch of government will play the dominant role during the first decade of the twenty-first ...