Sunday, September 28, 2014
Presidential Power
In my last post I wrote about how the Presidents Power may be the only way to stop ISIS and in some way I may negate that a little in this post. Presidential power may have gone overboard this past week in declaring war on ISIS. The Constitution clearly states that Congress has the sole power to declare war. Due to the imperial presidency, the presidents, over time, have somehow acquired much more power than originally vested in the constitution. President Obama declared war on ISIS by himself with Congress out of session but thats not how it works. Congress has to convene for a lame-duck session to pass legislation to formally declare war. With elections coming up, no senator or representative wants to vote on this and allow it to affect there chances of keeping their seat. This creates a problem for our country, but what do the people do. If war is to be declared it needs to be done right and people need to quit sitting around waiting on someone else to do something.
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This is an interesting topic to discuss, there has always been and will continue to be a fight for how much power the president and congress should have, and it is ever so evident in this story. The funny thing is that Obama was hesitant to use military power to combat ISIS, personally I believe that if it wasn't for the majority of America calling for it, it would of never happened. Congress on the other hand was more so in favor the use of power from the get go, they felt as if the situation needed the use of Americas military. When everything was all said and done, it was Obama that went around congress to use the military, the irony of this whole situation is enough to make anyone laugh.
ReplyDeleteI agree that presidential power should be checked. Every president seeks to expand their power while in office, while each opposing party attempts to limit it. However, President Obama does not need a formal declaration of war from Congress because the Islamic State is not a country. They are an organization much like the Taliban or Al Qaeda. In fact the last time that Congress actually voted and passed a declaration of war was in 1941. We have had numerous military combat operations since then. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was meant to check presidential war powers but as history shows that hasn't been very effective. Personally I believe that even if it was left to Congress, there would be so much debate and gridlock that it would never get done.
ReplyDeleteAdam, you make some excellent points. The Presidents power should be checked. This is why the framers put the checks in balances in the constitution so that we would not have one branch obtain so much power. I think the president was beyond his powers in declaring war on ISIS. He should have went through the proper channels. On the other hand the people, in my opinion, need to step up and make that decisions and then make sure their representatives in Congress are aware of it so that they can act. Whether or not that happens is a whole lot different because of the different viewpoints and opinions by each representative in Congress.
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