Question

Although Congress is the institutional body designated to make policies, the president, bureaucrats, and even Supreme Court justices make policies as well. Explain how each of these actors (including Congress) are policy makers in their own right.

Answer 1

Policy refers to the strategies that a government follows. It is not a decree; it’s a plan of action, generally when we speak about policy we speak of public policy. Public policy is a course of government action as a reaction to public problems. It is associated with formally approved policy aims, and the rules of agencies that implement these plans. A policy maker maybe defined as someone who makes policies. In a government, there are many policy makers, including the President, Congress and Courts.

Congress as Policy Maker: When the Constitution framers created a two-house legislature, they created a system of checks and balances within Congress by requiring a bill to be passed in both house, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The organizations, controls, and roles of the House of Representatives and the Senate are dissimilar, and these differences can affect the policymaking process: for example, by accelerating it or slowing it down, and by the degree to which bilateral partnership is or is not facilitated. They could use:

· Cloture: A procedure of Senate using which a majority of 60 senators can vote to limit the time spent debating a bill and remove a filibuster.

· Committee of the Whole: A team of the House of Representatives on which all representatives work in order to consider the facts of a scheme.

· House Rules Committee: The committee responsible for planning and handling the flow of legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives in order to make the process more convenient. The committee can also make it easier or more difficult for a bill to pass subject to the rules they make.

· Pork barrel legislation: The use of federal funding to finance local schemes by bringing funds into a representative’s district in order to gratify residents.

The President as policy maker :The President of USA is the chief of state . He is the chief legislator, the President shapes public policy. He may propose, appeal, and assert that Congress enact laws he believes are needed. At times, Congress may not agree with the President and decides against legislation.. He is also vested with the power of Veto by not signing a legislation although it can be overturned by the Congress by a majority.

The bureaucrats as policy makers :It is the Bureaucrats who actually put government policies into practice, and thus they have a huge impact on policymaking. In order to get the policies passed, the president and Congress toil with the bureaucracy. In reality federal bureaucracies merely carries out the policies enacted. But many believe that the bureaucracy plays a significant role in federal policymaking using iron triangles and issue networks.

· Iron Triangle is an association of people from three groups: a congressional subcommittee that deals with an issue, the executive agency that enforces laws on that issue, and private interest groups .The participants generally know each other and work together to create policy that serves their interests.

· Issue Network is a group of individuals who support a specific policy, not a broader issue. The three parts of the iron triangle are often also parts of a single issue network, but there may be others as well, that include experts, scholars or the media. Just like Iron triangle they can shape and control policy.

The supreme court justices as policy makers:The Court judgements can have a vital impact on policy, law, and legislative or executive action; different courts can also have an impact on each other. In the U.S. law system, a precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal court decision that is either obligatory on, or cogent for, a court or other tribunal when deciding upon succeeding cases with similar issues or facts.