Notes

The President of the United States, arguably the most powerful man/woman in the world.

**Addressed in Article 2 of the Constitution**

Qualifications:

-Natural born citizen: Cannot be a naturalized citizen.

-35 years old. Youngest elected was JFK at 43. Youngest POTUS was Teddy Roosevelt at 42.

-14 consecutive years of residence in the US

Terms:

-Elected to a maximum of 2, 4-year terms or 10 years.

-Must win a majority of the votes of the electoral college; USUALLY goes along with winning the majority of the popular vote (but not always, see Trump/Clinton, Bush/Gore, etc.).

-Majority: 50% +1.

-Plurality: More than anybody else.

-Winner take all: If a candidate for pres. wins the popular vote in a state, regardless of how much he wins by, he gets all of that state's electoral votes (even if he only wins the state by 1 vote, he still gets all of the electoral votes)

-Before he/she can even run for president, they must go through a nomination process in order to become their party's nominee. Sometimes this is tougher than the actual election to become president.

-Even though the candidate is pretty much known beforehand, their position as the party's candidate isn't official until after that party's convention held the summer before that November's election.

-It is at this convention that the party decides its platform (what it's going to stand for during that election and if elected) which is made up of individual planks (their stance on each particular issue).

-Democratic Party Platform: http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform

-Republican Party Platform: http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home/

-Green Party Platform: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/index.php

-They run for office as one of a pair of candidates, one for president and one for vice president. Usually, the VP candidate is used as a way to balance the ticket and get the person running for president elected; the power that the VP has when in office varies depending on the relationship that they have with their president. The VP usually gets the majority of the crap jobs, like going to the funerals of important but not really important people around the world, etc.

Powers and Duties:

-Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces

  • War Powers Act of 1973

a. Can send troops anywhere for 60 days (with an extra 30 days for troop removal)

b. Must inform Congress within 48 hours of sending troops

c. After the 60 days expires, Congress decides if troops stay or go

  • Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF)

a. President may send troops to fight those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks

  • Can confirm major awards for Armed Services, such as the Medal of Honor

  • Must authorize major military decisions (D-Day invasion, dropping of atomic bombs, etc.)

-Chief Executive

  • Hires/Appoints thousands of government officials (Heads of departments, Supreme Court and federal judges, etc.)

  • Pardon power

  • Suggests a budget to Congress

  • Enforces laws (Executive Orders)

-Chief of State

  • Ceremonial responsibilities of the president

  • Pardoning the turkey, White House Correspondents Dinner, Lighting the WH Christmas tree, inviting championship teams to the White House

-Chief Legislator

  • Sign/veto/pocket veto bills

  • Suggest bills to Congress

  • State of the Union Address **Must give a State of the Union address annually. Tells what his plans are for the next year and how the country is doing (or how he/she feels it is doing)**

  • Host Congressional leaders to negotiate compromises

-Party Chief

  • The president is the head of their political party and can steer the party to focus on certain topics

-Chief Diplomat

  • Determines the majority of our stance on foreign affairs (isolationist, idealist, realist, internationalist, etc.)

  • Head of foreign affairs

  • Appoints ambassadors

  • Meets with leaders of foreign nations

  • Negotiates trade deals and treaties


Advisors & Executive Office

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet

-Even though we elect people to be President with the idea that they will be able to deal with anything, nobody is an expert in all areas and they therefore need advisors to help guide their decisions.

-The Cabinet: Consists of the heads of the divisions that actually get the government's "work" done.

All headed by a person called the "Secretary of _____" except the Dep't of Justice headed by the Attorney General.

-Dep't of Agriculture

-Dep't of Commerce (Trade)

-Dep't of Defense

-Dep't of Energy

-Dep't of Education

-Dep't of Health & Human Services

-Dep't of Housing & Urban Development

-Dep't of Interior

-Dep't of Justice (Attorney General)

-Dep't of Labor

-Dep't of State

-Dep't of Transportation

-Dep't of the Treasury

-Dep't of Veteran's Affairs

-Dep't of Homeland Security

Economic Policy

-As a government, ours has the power to tax and spend (and they obviously do both.

-Ours taxes us in the following ways (abridged listing) at the federal level:

-Personal income tax

-Corporate income tax

-Excise taxes

-Social Security

-Estate and gift taxes

-Taxes on imports

-At the state level, we can be taxed:

-Sales tax

-Personal and corporate income taxes

-Excise taxes

-Licenses

-The federal government tries to stabilize our economy using both fiscal and monetary policy.

-Fiscal policy: Spending, taxing and borrowing strategies used to achieve a desired result in the economy. Raising or lowering taxes, adjusting gov't spending.

*Lowering taxes can have the net effect in the long run of actually increasing the amount of $$ that the government brings in in taxes.

*There is a long standing debate on our tax system; many believe that it is garbage and should be replaced with "something else", but not a lot of people agree on what that should be.

-Monetary policy: Controlled by the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed). This board decides 1) A bank's reserve requirements, 2) The "discount rate" or interest rate that banks pay when they borrow from the federal bank, and 3) Open-market operations, or how many bonds are going to be made available for sale to people that become in effect "creditors" of the US. Members of the Federal

Reserve Board are appointed and approved, and cannot be removed from their offices just because their personal opinions on how the economy should be regulated may differ from the President's.