Essay on "American Government and Politics Today"

Essay 18 pages (5873 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Government

Why did the Framers of the Constitution create a bicameral legislature? Was part of the reason for a two-house legislature the idea that it would be more difficult to pass legislation, therefore serving as a check on a runaway legislature? What impact does this have today? Is it easy for Congress to agree on legislation?

There are three main reasons.

The primary reason was an issue of chronological precedent. At the same time as the American colonists had revolted against British regulation in the Revolutionary War, they silently drew a lot of their ideas about government from their colonial understanding as British citizens. In addition, the British Parliament had two houses -- an upper chamber, the House of Lords, packed with representatives of the nobility, and a lower chamber, the House of Commons, full of representatives of the commonplace people. That case in point shaped the thoughts of the Constitution's framers.

The secondary reason was more academic. The framers' importance for the proposal of checks and balances made them suspicious that a unicameral legislature may merge excess power in one establishment. By separating legislative control connecting the House and the Senate, the two chambers would provide checks against each other's influence, theoretically averting either from ever getting tyrannical supremacy (Romzek, et al. 2009).

The third, and undoubtedly the most significant, was a topic of realistic politics. The Constitutional Convention integrated delegates from twelve of the basic thirteen states. (Rhode Island decided to boycott the entire thing.) Those delegates turned up from minute states and large states. The minute states, fearful of trailing influence in the new government, insisted that depiction in Congress be rewarded on an identical basis to all states, regardless of how large or small. But the large states were adamant, no less vehemently, that representation ought to be based on residents; because larger states had additional voters, they should have more votes in Congress, as well. This ferocious argument over depiction dragged on all through the summer of 1787, intimidating to disrupt the whole Constitutional Convention. But a bicameral legislature gave the right chance for conciliation -- in actual fact, for "The Great Compromise." Small states received their equal representation in the Senate, bigger states got their comparative representation in the House, and everybody went home contented (Gerber, 2009).

However was "The Great Compromise" actually so vast? If the primary standard of democracy is "one person, one vote," then how democratic is the United States Senate? (Romzek, et al. 2009) At the moment, the prevalent state (California, domicile to above 36.5 million people) has a populace almost 78 times bigger than the littlest state (Wyoming, habitat to a little over 500,000). Although the two states' demonstration in the Senate is equivalent -- two seats for everyone. That perhaps translates that an entity voter from Wyoming is valued 78 times in so far as any one Californian. Is that fair? Is that democratic? (Your response to that query will almost certainly depend on whether you live in Denver or San Francisco.) On the one hand, the present arrangement does make sure that places like Wyoming are not completely unnoticed in our national politics. On the other hand, it barely appears to be fair to refute Californians (and Texans, New Yorkers, and inhabitants of further large states) the right to "one person, one vote" (Monk, 2009).

No matter what you imagine about the impartiality of equal depiction in the Senate, the system is entrenched. Article V of the Constitution makes sure that no state can forever be refused its equal representation in the Senate not including giving its permission...and Wyoming is no more probable to be in agreement to that now than the small states were back in 1787 (Romzek, et al. 2009).

Why is the senate so powerful in the United States?

The one hundred participants in the Senate have the authority to demolish legislation approved by the 435 representatives of the House of Representatives or stop it from passing in to law. Senators include the filibustering privilege that is not established members of the House. This shows that voter impartiality does not stay alive. In the United States organization of Government there exist three kindling's of Government, specifically, the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Cleanly stated, Congress, the Legislative Branch creates the laws; the President, the Executive Branch implements the laws; the Supreme Court, the Judicial Branch construes the laws and decides whether they are lawful. These three Branches that are assumed to be checks and balances pledge that no part of the Government will turn out to be excessively powerful (Raskin, 2010).

How necessary is bureaucracy? How can we tell whether we have too much bureaucracy, too little, or the wrong kind?

Often tedious and inefficient purchasing and hiring rules, for example, are in place not primarily to improve administrative rationality but to make these processes more open, fair, and inclusive. In a similar way, measures that mandate citizen involvement in administrative affairs aim not to make administration more efficient but to make it more democratic (Monk, 2009). Given this tension, bureaucrats find themselves having constantly to make judgments about how to balance these two sets of values. The articles presented here critique from fresh perspectives some of the premises on which the bureaucratic model is based. All offer alternatives to the classic bureaucratic model. In doing so, they offer readers the opportunity to gain useful distance from "administration as usual."

He calls for a radically new understanding, one that will enable bureaucracies to respond more effectively to a continuing problem: relationships between administrative agencies and their clients. In White's view, this problem is not solved by efficient management. Rather it stems from the existing view of the relationship, which sees clients primarily as irrational children and administrators as rational adults. White argues that administrative behavior is neither as rational nor as efficient as this picture suggests. By implication, he calls into question Weber's model. He urges a different, "dialectical" way of thinking about bureaucracies and their clients.

For a dialectical -- i.e. oppositional -- view, White looks to non-bureaucratic organizations, where commitment to impersonal, efficient service is replaced by personal involvement with clients, and administrators never give up on anyone and try their best to make a difference. In this framework the relationship between client and administrator is one between equals instead of being based on an adult -- child, or therapeutic, model. The goal is not to restructure the client but to facilitate the client's negotiational effectiveness. The administrative structure necessary to support such a relationship is nonhierarchical. Roles are fluid, and diverse perspectives are accommodated. White maintains that while implementing such a model in large-scale public organizations raises difficult tactical questions, its relevancy to issues of effective democratic government is greater now than ever.

In reflecting on bureaucratic power, Lowery takes us back to the views of the American founders. Opposing the conventional view, he suggests that administration was quite important to the architects of the American system. But the founders' thought about administration (or bureaucracy) was essentially grounded in political rather than organizational theory; thus their perspective seems alien in modern eyes (Gerber, 2009).

Lowery examines four aspects of the founders' thinking and its implications: (1) their view of administration as a threat to individual liberty; (2) their views on the source of this threat; (3) the extent to which their views can be transposed to the analysis of modern bureaucracy; and (4) what this new sort of analysis might contribute to contemporary research (Raskin, 2010).

The founders feared the potential of bureaucracy to interfere in the private lives of citizens and to upset the carefully drawn constitutional system of checks and balances. The sources of the threat lay in administrative monopoly over crucial information, in the selfish personal motives of administrators, in the propensity for what we now call "pork barrel politics" (serving individual constituents instead of the general good), and in excessive legislative control over administrative agencies (Schattschneider, 2005). Lowery argues that despite changes in the context and differences from modern analyses, the founders' views are still salient. Reflection on their arguments makes clear the danger of separating the study of bureaucracy from larger political theories. Lowery calls for more rigorous research into the workings of bureaucracy than the "anecdotal" form on which the founders relied. His analysis points up important differences between political and organizational theories of public administration. Like the other two authors in this section, he suggests that the study of administration requires attention to both perspectives.

"The politics of boom and bust the audacity of Obama"

What are the benefits of having the federal government more involved in banking, automobile manufacturing health care, and other areas of the economy? What are the downsides?

It is no surreptitious issue that President Obama is proud of the taxpayer-backed government interference that saved U.S. auto-manufacturers GM and Chrysler back in 2009. He frequently takes recognition for the companies' resurgent productivity and employment as one of his highest achievements.

These… READ MORE

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