Presidential power and its constitutional limits

¶ … Presidential Power

While the scope of modern presidential power far exceeds the very limited but potent powers that the President is given in Article II of the Constitution, it does not appear that those powers have increased dramatically over the last 20 years, especially when one compares the President's power with congressional power. It is important to keep in mind that most presidents have "used their implied and informal presidential powers to enhance their personal influence" (Annenberg Foundation, 2014). This began with Washington and, in many ways, it has grown over the course of history, resulting in an Executive Branch that is more powerful than anticipated at the time of the Constitution. However, while the President is, nominally, the head of the Executive Branch, it is critical to keep in mind that the Executive is extremely dependent upon the Congress. "Congress controls the purse strings for all the branches of government; Congress has approval authority over appointments within the Executive and Judicial branches and the Military" (Lillebo, 2007). What this means is that the President may be exercising an increasing amount of power, when compared to the powers explicitly outlined in the Constitution, but he cannot exercise them without the Congress, and this power goes beyond Congress having the power to override a Presidential veto. Congress controls the money, which means that it always has the power to limit the impact of the Executive. In a partisan system, what this has translated to is presidents with more power when the majority in Congress shares the Presidents political affiliation or when the majority of Congress is moderate. As a result, it becomes clear that presidential powers can only be increased if Congress allows the budget to pay for the exercise of those powers. By controlling the budget, the Congress controls the President.