Political Science

Political Science

The relationship with Congress is important to any presidency since it can ultimately determine the scope of reform and effectiveness of reaction to events in global politics undertaken by this or that President . In the words of Bowles , the Presidency 's single most important political relationship is that with Congress (History Learning . With that said , most Presidents have tried to garner influence and support in Congress . Many have succeeded , and many failed Overall , the success of presidency is largely determined by the degree of collaboration the President has with

legislators

Over the time , this relationship does not stay stable . In fact , it shifts with each successive President , becoming either more or less tilted toward one side or the other . A number of presidents have had little influence in the Parliament , which affected their policies and their ability to realize their proposed innovations . Thus , lack of clout with the legislative branch seriously jeopardized the chances of Nixon to pass SALT 1 and push for extra expenditures for the Vietnam campaign Lyndon Johnson , too , faced a challenge in Congress when he tried to put his Great Reform bills through eventually they were passed but only after much `wheeling ' and dealing in back rooms with Congressional chairman (Historic Learning . Even J .F . Kennedy had to struggle with Congress to get his bills through

In contract , the incumbent President seems to do relatively well in terms of parliamentary support . The first Congress especially demonstrated strong encouragement of the Iraqi campaign at the time when such policies were seen as extremely debatable . Among George W . Bush 's successes is the fact that in July 2002 , Congress approved of the largest expansion of America 's military with a 34 .4 billion increase in defence spending ' on the President 's initiative . The anti-terrorism measures including a host of executive s supposed to improve the nation 's security were passed by Congress even though they contained what might seem violations of cherished American freedoms . The success of the incumbent President can be explained by the fact that Congress was controlled by Republicans among which Bush has clearly expressed support for most of his initiatives

It is difficult to say looking at these examples whether there is a clear trend for Presidents to get more or less power in Congress . The outcome seems to depend on the qualities of an individual President as much as the result of an electoral situation at the time . On the legal side , the powers of the President seem to have increased since presidential powers have increased over the past 60 years in good part because of grants of power by Congress to the presidency (McGregor These increased competencies in the areas of foreign policy and military operations are caused by a change in outside reality that witnesses a growing role of the US in the world politics . However , even against the background of growing presidential power in terms of technical powers the specific situation at one point in time is determined...