What Is The Constitutional Basis Of President's Domestic Policymaking

The Founding Fathers who made the Constitution did not intend for the president to be a major domestic policymaker. Article II establishes that Congress, not the President, as having the policymaking power. Congress is to legislate and the president is to take care that laws are executed the way they were supposed to be. The president is given the authority to recommend legislation that is necessary and expedient but has no written power to get it passed. Nowhere in the constitution is does it state that the president will be chief domestic policymaker. Yet this is actually what has occurred. The president is expected by the people and Congress alike to propose legislative programs and use the influence of the office to make sure it is

enacted. If the president fails in this regard citizens hold the president accountable.
The framers did not foresee the president as chief domestic policy maker; they did however provide the president some policymaking powers. The president has the power to recommend necessary and expedient legislation.

This would become important for the presidencies of the early 1900's. If the framers had not included this detail then the president could never have produced credible legislation. The president also implements this legislation into law and sees to its execution. These two acts have evolved as the Constitutional basis of the president’s policymaking role. For the first century presidents recommended measures, took positions on legislation before Congress, occasionally even drafted bills, but did not formulate a cohesive domestic policy on a regular basis. It wasn't until the 1880s that there was a change in the public's view toward the role of the federal government in the United States. This changed ideology was brought forth by market competition that was carried to its extreme, and resulting from the laissez faire policy. Laissez faire is Latin for let do, which was a policy that basically stated that the government was to have little to no interaction with the private sector. This was a well enough policy until people started to abuse it and create giant monopolies. The government promoted industry as a means to develop the economy. However, “big” business grew larger and was able to dominate markets in many areas through monopoly. Business

men were arrogant to the fact that they could fix prices to their liking due the fact that there was no competition. An example of this would be when Standard Oil was created they bought out 39 independent oil companies, eliminating the need for economic competition which meant people couldn't not shop around for prices. In economics if people are allowed to look for lower priced goods then those goods will find a medium point of being affordable for the consumer and producer. When all economic competition is eliminated then companies can charge what they like because the people have no choice but to buy from them. This can be seen in the steel industry, from which the ruthless behavior of Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc. eliminated small steel companies. Likewise in the banking industry, J.P. Morgan attempted to create a banking trust.
Calls for change were becoming more and more frequent, but Congress, like we in today's Congress, was fragmented, special interests were given to much say so, and they were lacking in policy leadership. In 1886, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce act to address the issue of overcharged prices by the railroads against farmers. This was during the first Grover Cleveland term. It was amended during 1867 to prevent the Republican President Benjamin Harrison from failing to implement the legislation by placing responsibility for implementation in an independent commission. By placing it into an independent commission Congress took away the Presidents power to directly affect policy. In 1890, during the Benjamin Harrison administration, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act and President Harrison signed the legislation into law. However, the Supreme Court removed the main component of these enactments based on a restrictive interpretation of the 10th amendment. William McKinley was business friendly and because of this it lead to little action to suppress monopoly practices.
Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900's and continuing through till Woodrow Wilson, presidential participation in the policymaking process greatly expanded. President Roosevelt would consult frequently with Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon. Cannon’s power as Speaker would help President Roosevelt get his progressive era legislation through Congress. President Roosevelt’s legislative program was called the “square deal”. This legislation would deal with things from the creation of the Panama Canal, to the creation of a National Parks Service, to various conservationist measures. President Roosevelt administration attempted to use a trust-busting strategy by using the Sherman Act, but the Supreme Court restricted his ability to do so. President Roosevelt did push through legislation known as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 in reaction to the excesses of the meat packing industry. The White Slave Trade Act of 1910, otherwise known as the Mann Act, prohibited the movement of Women in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution. While he did not have the reputation for doing so, President Taft continued many of the policies from the Roosevelt administration.
Woodrow Wilson would expand the presidential role even further. Having been a political scientist he wrote a book while a professor at Princeton entitled Congressional Government. In the book he depicted government in which the United States was primarily Congress centered. The president was depicted as assuming a rather small policymaking role. Nevertheless, Wilson compared his responsibilities as similar to those of the British prime minister, which meant he could propose an agenda of measures that addressed social and economic problems and then to use his personal and political influence to see that they were enacted. President Wilson would personally help formulate a legislative program, even going so far as to draft some legislation. He also would address Congress and gave a State of the Union, thus making him the first President to do so since John Adams.
Wilson would push the limits of the Presidency by pushing legislation that would help the working class of America and this program was labeled as the new freedom.

He would introduce legislation that created the Federal Reserve System for the purpose of stabilizing the money system. He also secured passage of the Adamson Act which would establish an 8 hour work day for Railroad workers. This new expansion of legislative power would be greeted by opponents who did not want this new extension of presidential power. The Supreme Court would continue to take a strict view of the expanded role of the federal government that had survived since the progressive era. A restrictive interpretation of the 10th amendment implied that the federal government did not have the authority to regulate matters in intra-state commerce or to interfere in the economies or affairs of the states. This decision would eventually be overruled during F.D.R presidency when the Supreme Court would allow the government to manage who much of a product could be manufactured, which was the basis of acts such as the Agriculture Adjustment

Act.
The depression would do more to expand the president’s role than any other single event in American Presidency. Herbert Hoover would take a hand off approach to the nation’s economic difficulties. Herbert Hoover believed in rugged individualism and this was seen by his inaction throughout the beginning of the Great Depression. This sense of rugged individualism meant that he believed it was up to the people to fix the economy and not the governments. Under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt he would address many of the problems of the depression and from this point onward, the president was expected to be the chief policymaker. Under President Franklin Roosevelt many industries would come under the control of the central government. The Banking Act of 1935 would centralize the banking system and federal regulation of depository institutions. While the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation would insure bank deposits so that people would have a guaranteed amount of money always in the bank. The Agricultural Adjustment Act would make payments to farmers to control production and reduce acreage and competition, affect prices. National Industrial Recovery Act would bring about fair competition in specifying wages and hours for labor and prices. Under these programs the government rained in the economy and controlled it like never before. President Franklin Roosevelt participated in designing a program for bringing the nation out of the depression. He would draft legislation and fight for that legislation in Congress. When the Supreme Court struck down major components of the New Deal, President Roosevelt threatened to “pack” the court with one new justice for every one that opposed the program. By doing this he was threatening to something that was technically not in the constitution and the fact the Supreme Court back down from their stance showed the growing power in the presidency.
From here on the branch that the American people look for in terms of policymaking in the new policy making system has been the president. Kennedy and Johnson expanded the role of the federal government to include social welfare and civil rights measures. Some of their programs included: Medicare and Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. These programs expanded the help the government gave to people who needed it and expanded the governments reach into the social lives of the American people.
The 1960s were a period of prosperity and economic development. However, with the weakening of the economy that happened during the beginning of the Nixon administration produced new constraints. Higher inflation, greater unemployment, declining productivity, and increased foreign competition restricted the ability of the government to address both economic and social problems. The public’s mood also shifted through this period into a more restrictive attitude. Presidents from Carter through Clinton would attempt to shrink the role of the federal government in how it affected the economy and in the realm of social welfare. However, government would grow substantially during the Carter through Bush I presidencies. Indeed, the federal debt grew to enormous sizes during the Reagan administration. Only Clinton was successful in shrinking the debt and size of the federal government, both in terms of personnel and how much the government spent as a proportion of Gross domestic product. The size of the federal government has expanded drastically during the George W. Bush administration: the new Department of Homeland security, increased defense spending, and the recent expansion of Medicare benefits would once again push the presidential limits in terms of power. This new extension didn't necessarily help the people directly, but rather is helps them indirectly by keeping them safe from foreign and domestic threats.
The office of the President has changed tremendously since the beginning of the nation. The President rarely offered legislation to Congress during the first century of its existence and it wasn't until President Theodore Roosevelt that the Presidency got involved. Ever since then Presidency has taken it upon themselves to become the champion of the people when it comes to domestic policies.