Relationship Between President And Congress

In the chapters assigned for February 9th, the main theme that is in both books is the ever-changing power struggle in foreign policies between the president and congress. In McCormick and Ziv the sections talk about how even with the flaws in the balance of power between the two branches of government, there has been this reoccurring theme of this power swinging to one government branch to the other. Looking at this trend and when they happen, we can notice certain influence that causes these changes in who controls the power. Looking in the past we see time and time again that congress having the ability to control foreign policy decisions and them either giving most of the power to the president or unable to take reign on the president’s decisions. Yet, in the nations history we do see times were congress is almost at the other end of the spectrum with almost complete control over what the president can and can’t do in terms of foreign policy. The reason behind this vary but does have on thing in common which is the influence of the popular opinion in American society. As stated in the book by McCormick, congress has a very close relationship with the people of America, that is, they depend on being popular with them to stay in office. While can be a burden at times, when conditions are just right this relationship can benefit them as well. We see this especially during …show more content…
With this in mind, congress has the responsibility to not only act accordable in today’s policies but to strive to make the struggle between the two branch of government less of a pendulum swinging back and forth and more of a constant equal state of