GOVT 201 UNIT 2 Individual project

GOVT201

Individual Assignment Project Unit 2

The Branches of the Government

The President of the United States is the highest seat of power known today. This is known

as the executive branch of the United States government. The President possesses powers that

influence the course of the nation. Each president holds office for a term of four years and may

be re-elected for another term of four years. During his term the president has the power to

command our armed forces to war, or another example of the president’s power to issue

executive orders to pardon someone sentenced to death or life in prison. During his second term

in office President Barack Obama put the Affordable Care Act into legislation, making it a law

that each and every citizen of the United States has affordable health insurance and a higher

quality of medical care (White House.Gov., 2017).

One serious presidential policy that is at issue currently is the alleged nepotism going on

with our current President. After President Kennedy was assassinated the Federal Anti-Nepotism

Statue was enacted. According to that law, a public official may not appoint, employ, advance, or

advocate for appointment, employment or promotion being a relative of that public official. This

law went into effect approximately six years after President Kennedy appointed his brother,

Robert Kennedy to the Office of the Attorney General. Since the inauguration and swearing in of

our forty fifth president this issue has been bouncing back and forth because of the appointment

of the president’s son-in-law and claimed that he would not take a salary as justification for

breaking the anti-nepotism law. Some citizen’s call this an abuse of power and are calling for

impeachment proceedings to begin against President Trump (Constitution Center.Gov., 2017).

Over the years it seems as though just as people and times change, the powers of each

president has evolved with each individual president that has been elected to office for as long as

I can remember. It seems that in the past seventy years or so the balance of power has shifted

dramatically in a way that the executive branch has equal power to the legislative branch. The

constitution gave the President limited powers and was dominated by Congress until

approximately the 1930’s. So in a sense it is fair to say that today’s presidency was shaped and

molded by a combination of constitutional and evolutionary powers. It seems it may be safe to

say that the United States presidency has evolved as President Kennedy expanded our foreign

affairs. In today’s presidency foreign affairs are a big question mark since any progress our

country has made in the past with foreign affairs seem to be on their way to World War III along

with the United States if impeachment of our current president doesn’t happen soon.

The evolution of presidential powers in my opinion is not progressing with our current

president. It seems as though some presidents want a war and purposely do acts that create war

and heighten the possibilities of starting a war. If you look to our previous presidents, one

created and started a war on inaccurate information and the next president did all he possibly

could to end that war, and now we have another president that seems as though war is the only

answer to the problems we face in the United States today.

References

https://www.coloradotechnical.edu . MUSE: The Levels of Government. Government and

Constitutional Law. The Branches of Government. Retrieved August 2017

https://www.whitehouse.gov/ The Affordable Care Act. Retrieved August 2017

https://www.constitutioncenter.gov United States and its Legislation. Retrieved August 2017