What Are the Executive Powers of the President of the United States?

In one of my recent postings, I mentioned a book entitled Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in Modern Democracies. After rereading that informative review of the political history of the first half of the 20^th Century I am convinced that, according to laws currently in force, there isn't much separating democracy and dictatorship.

Do the following two paragraphs seem a little too familiar?

"This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly ... a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return ... the rulers of the exchange ... have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence ... Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion ... Stripped of the lure of profit ... they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers ...

"I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis . . . broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."

Before I reveal where I came across the above quote, let's consider the power currently granted to the president.

The President of the United States, in his capacity as the head of the executive branch, has the constitutional authority to declare a state of emergency. However, in the wake of the abuses of power during the Vietnam Era, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651) which limits the president's ability to declare an emergency by requiring that it automatically expire in two years unless specifically extended yearly. This act also requires that a president must specify, in advance and in specific, which provisions of federal law will be invoked in the course of such emergency, and also that Congress may override such declarations of emergency.

A president may also invoke, again in a declared emergency, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1707), which provides a legal basis for the freezing of assets, limiting of trade with, and the confiscation of property, a foreign nation during such a declared national emergency.

And what do these laws allow a president to do?

Pretty much as he damn well pleases.

And how could a president do pretty much as he damn well pleases?

Did you ever hear of something called an "Executive Order?"

An Executive Order (EO) is an order issued by the president when he (or she, potentially) decides that there is a situation of such gravity that it must be addressed immediately rather than wait for Congress to get back into town. An EO does not require Congressional but becomes the law of the land as soon as the president signs it. Thus, an EO has the full authority of the federal government behind it, just like any other law enacted by Congress, and can only be overturned by a specific act of Congress or by being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

In the past, Executive Orders have been used to imprison a million or so Japanese (Franklin Roosevelt, 1942) and to fight an undeclared (but politically motivated) war with Yugoslavia (Bill Clinton, 1998).

Let the following quotations explain the love that presidents have for Executive Orders.

"Stroke of the pen; Law of the Land; kinda cool." (Former Clinton Administration advisor Paul Begala, New York Times, July 5, 1998).

"We've switched the rules of the game. We're not trying to do anything legislatively." (Then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Washington Times, June 14, 1999).

In other words, so long as he has the support of Congress, a president can simply make law as he or she sees fit! It is the unquestioning support of Congress that could make a president into a dictator. This brings us back to the quotation, above.

The quote was taken from Franklin Roosevelt's first Inaugural Address, in which he placed the blame for the then-current economic depression squarely at the feet of "Wall Street" and "Big Business" rather than where that blame actually belonged: on the Congress and its inane tariff policies as well as those citizens that had borrowed more money than they could ever hope to repay.

Congress, of course, rubber-stamped every proposed law that Roosevelt submitted to it, without question, and with total disregard to each law's potential unconstitutionality. Whether or not Roosevelt's actions were justifiable, given the context of the era, is immaterial. There is but one point that Americans should keep in mind.

The combination of a charismatic leader, an easily-duped electorate, and the popular perception of an existing "emergency" can lead all too easily lead to a dictatorship; be it a dictatorship of the majority or of a minority. If you think that I might be exaggerating with that statement, does the name "Hitler" ring a bell?

The circumstances, both then and today, are frighteningly similar. Just remember, Hitler's actions in assuming control of Germany were perfectly legal under the then-existing laws. One he had the Reichstag is his pocket the rest, as they say all too often, was history.