The Basics of American Government 3E

Summary

by Barry D. Friedman

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution empowers the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Executing the thousands of laws that Congress has enacted requires the work of more than one official, so an enormous administrative apparatus (commonly referred to as the “bureaucracy”) is in place to execute the laws under the president’s supervision. During the more than 230 years since the Constitution went into effect, the administrative establishment has grown piecemeal, with a wide variety of institutional forms (such as departments, multi-member commissions, government corporations, and other types) that have been installed for sound or arbitrary reasons. The officials who are appointed to serve in the executive branch obtain their jobs in a variety of ways: sometimes based on rewarding loyalty to the president and sometimes based on installing the most qualified individual. While the president struggles to cause his subordinates to take direction from him, he discovers to his chagrin that bureaucrats – to serve their own interests or to hold on to their jobs – routinely act, instead, to indulge members of Congress, clientele groups, and others who are just as adamant as the president about their own interests that, they are convinced, ought to be served by the administration.