Executive Branch And Legislative Process

Since the late 1700s, American government continuously found itself in gridlock with the executive and legislative branch in passing bills. The executive, which is commonly known as where ‘the highest office in the land’ is located, enforces the laws passed by congress. At times, the executive must come up with new and unique ways to combat congress hesitation and approve bills the branch wants. Some tools in the executive’s toolkit such as having some authority over agencies budget help to enforce other departments to work with the leaders of the executive branch. Although the division of powers among the branches limits the executive branch effectiveness in some forms, the executive branch is able to overcome their difficulties through innovative

For many departments and agencies in the United States government, power stems from the budget, they are given to work with because of their effectiveness as a government office changes. The larger the budget, the more collective power a department have which is a powerful reason every department should want to work with the executive branch to aid their own agenda. For the president, controlling the budget is a great way to get proposals onto the congress floor and into law. Andrew Rudalevige, the author of The Executive Branch and the Legislative Process, writes in his book how the budget became a tool of the executive and the text states,

“After World War I, such arguments succeeded in rationalizing the budget process under the president’s authority: the 1921 Budget and Accounting Act gave presidents responsibility for overseeing individual agencies budget requires and unified; coordinated executive budget. A new organization, the Bureau of the Budget (BoB), was created within the Treasury Department to serve as the administration’s staff arm in endeavor” (Rudalevige,

Picking and choosing battles to fight is very important for the executive if they hope to cause real change for the people. In Rudalevige’s book, he gives advice to future presidents and said, “Too few priorities may be better than too many, usually, presidents should choice the targeted “refile” approach over firing a less focused “shotgun” blast legislative proposals at congress” (Rudalevige, 437 – 438). A ‘refile approach’ offers more emphasis on certain subjects of importance and can sometimes lead to more congressional approval. The executive branch must continuously evaluate which issues will most likely to get greenlighted fight harder for and note policies to give up on temporarily. Today, we have learned there are more powers to the executive branch than previously known to battle against congressional