The Awesome Power of the Bully Pulpit

A bully pulpit refers to a public office, specifically the presidency, which provides the holder a terrific platform for rallying support for a specific issue or simply to make one’s view public. Due to the stature of the presidency the bully pulpit can bring issues to the forefront that was not initially in debate. For example, Pres. Obama, with the power of the bully pulpit, was able to shift the debate concerning illegal immigration last week by declaring why his administration will stop deporting young illegal immigrants brought to the United States at no fault of their own. Specifically, the U.S. will no longer deport illegal immigrants who meet the following criteria:

• Came to the U.S. before age 16
• Lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years
• In school, graduated, or a U.S. veteran
• No felonies, not a threat to the U.S.
• Not older than 30

As president, Obama has an unparalleled opportunity to make and set policies while the bully pulpit allows the president to announce those policies and rally support. Meanwhile, candidate Mitt Romney, Pres. Obama’s republican challenger, can only react to the agenda of the incumbent president and merely make untested and immaterial promises to the electorate. As a result, Mitt Romney is now faced with the politically difficult task of either alienating independent voters by holding firm with his previously stated hard-line stance on illegal immigration (e.g. self deportation, zero tolerance) or angering the conservative base by flip-flopping on the issue altogether. One reason why Romney is in this problematic situation is due in part to Obama’s ability to set policy as the sitting president and the awesome power of the bully pulpit afforded him.

–TERRANCE MULLINS

Related articles

• Immigration, Obama, Romney and the Republican Party: Who Fumbled the Ball? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Obama Changes the Subject (politicalwire.com)

National Debt and Paying for Public Goods

I just recently checked to see how much each person currently living in the United States owes toward the national debt.  As of today (mid-October 2011) the figure is:

$47,685.89

In other words, even after the taxes I paid last year and the year before (etc.) I still owe the above amount in future taxes just to help pay off the current outstanding debt.  And,

• This is if we stopped increasing the debt as of NOW
• This may not include interest (which we now know can take a hit based on what Congress and the President do or don’t do)
• I don’t know how this figure treats corporations and businesses (which we now know that a majority of the members of the Supreme Court believe to have many of the same rights as individual people)

But back to what I owe.  I am fifty-two years old and hope to be a tax-paying American for at least another thirteen years.  That comes out to about $3668 a year over and above what I will be paying in taxes that pay for government programs and services that do not add to the debt.  And if I live to be eighty the figure drops to $1703 a year over and above what I will be paying in taxes that pay for government programs and services that do not add to the debt.

Taxation of citizens and residents by government may be necessary to pay for public goods that are deemed necessary and important by a society.  Maybe the most important part of that concept is to “pay for public goods.”  In other words, we should be taxed to actually pay for what government does.  Robert Smith puts a different spin on the national debt by looking at the last time it was completely paid off.  I don’t know about you, but there has to be a difference between massive cross-generational debt and responsible use of debt to finance some parts of our public load.  What do you think?

–DENNIS FALCON

Executive Orders and Gridlock

The recent political battle over raising the national debt-limit has provided an excellent teaching opportunity around such topics as checks and balances and the separation of powers.  This blog will look specifically at the powers of the executive branch to explore options available to American presidents in the event that a divided or otherwise gridlocked government is proving problematic during times of crisis.

The Constitution grants the President the power to take care “that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3, Clause 4).  The President of the United States is the Chief Executive of the nation and the head of government—there are
approximately 2 million federal employees who work in some respect for the
President in 15 Departments and some 70 “independent” agencies.  Many of these civilian managers and employees are subject to the executive orders
of the President.  Generally speaking, executive orders are considered to have the full force of law in-so-far as they are legal and authorized by some previous act of Congress or power granted by the Constitution.  Executive orders direct federal officers and employees to carry out their duties and responsibilities in the manner set forth by the order.  In this regard, the President has considerable power over the actual operations of federal agencies as they work to fulfill their duties as defined by Congress (For a recent example of an executive order and its reception see Cass Sunstein’s post of July 11, 2011).

I believe it is worth considering how the President might have used the executive order to make full use of his executive powers to tilt the debt limit impasse in a direction more to his own liking.  Could the President have issued
executive orders, for example, to make government defaults on specific
agreements less likely?  Could the President have used executive orders to move existing federal funds around to make payments that were at risk of default?
I suggest you look at the history of the executive order to see how previous presidents have used executive orders—in sometimes controversial ways—to
exercise their powers as the Chief Executive.

–DENNIS FALCON

Bully Pulpit

Bully pulpit, a term first coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, refers to a political office, specifically the White House, as a powerful platform from which to advocate a political agenda. In other words, the President of the United States is in the position to use his office to rally public support or sway public. Currently, Pres. Barack Obama has been using the bully pulpit in an attempt to educate the American people concerning the perils of a U.S. default.  If the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations, interest rates could skyrocket at the very least while faith in the world’s premier economy could be shatter sending global stock markets plunging at the very most.

William Howell of CNN posted a blog outlining the different roles the Congress and the present play when formulating policy. Nonetheless, the framers of the U.S. Constitution never intended the president to have the power to influence public opinion in the way advancements in communication technology now allows. Do you believe it is appropriate for the modern president to leapfrog the Congress and talk directly to the American people in order to influence public opinion on public policy?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

American Symbolism

The presidency involves many roles and responsibilities. One function of the President of the United States is to serve as chief of state. As such he or she represents the American people as a whole and is a living symbol of the country explaining why the president’s family is affectionately called the “first family.” Ironically, the president is also the chief executive (the head of government/executive branch).  In simpler terms, the president is both the quarterback and the team mascot. This combination of responsibilities between governance and symbolism generate problems in the American political system as it is extremely difficult for the American populace to discern which role the president is performing at any given moment. As a direct result, knowing when to criticize the president’s policy and when to be patriotic during national ceremonies involving the president has become extremely alien . For example, if one does not care for the policy agenda of Pres. Obama it will be extremely difficult to view Obama as the representative of the American people during Memorial Day ceremonies or ribbon cutting events. The same held true for Pres. Bush during 9-11 memorial services when Bush critics neglected to realize that such events are about national mourning and  not party politics or public policy. In fact, the CNN political tracker recently published a blog examining how Memorial Day was shamefully and deliberately used as a political event by 2012 presidential hopefuls revealing the extensiveness of the problem .

Most counties avoid this situation by deliberately assigning the function of head of government (chief executive) and head of state (chief of state) to two separate individuals. Considering how politically polarized the American electorate has become I wonder if the United States should follow suit. However, which government position would be best suited to absorb the purely ceremonial function of symbolizing the United States of America and its people?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

The One Billion Dollar Man

It is estimated that President Barack Obama will raise one billion dollars for his 2012 presidential reelection bid. As a result, any republican challenger will have to raise the same amount of money if they truly intend to unseat him as president of the United States. A recent blog post at Fox Forum advocates New Jersey’s Chris Christie as a potential 2012 presidential challenger  due to his popularity and name recognition.  Name recognition describes the number of people in the electorate who are aware of a politician and is considered a significant factor in elections. Candidates with high name recognition are likely to receive the majority of votes from low-information voters which could be a major advantage.

However, the amount of political money necessary to run for high office raises serious questions regarding how democratic our society truly is. Have political campaigns become expensive to the point that only those with an already established image or name recognition can compete? Can we truly claim to be democratic if the only people able to enter politics are the only people able to raise large sums of money?

– TERRANCE MULLINS