Critical Dialogue: The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism. By Sarah Burns

In the first half of 2020, impeachment, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and the upcoming presidential election knocked forever wars even farther off our radar. According to Gallup’s “Most Important Problem” polling, over the past six months, national security, terrorism, and international affairs in general registered less than 0.5% of mentions in the national sample. And yet Sarah Burns’s new book is as relevant as it would have been if public opinion still cared about war as much as it did in the first decade of this century. Although this book, published in 2019, obviously could not include these timely 2020 subjects, it is indirectly relevant to them. When is the reckoning going to come for the dysfunctions of the modern presidency that simultaneously abuses and squanders power across various issues? When will Congress ever again embrace the fullness of its constitutional authority to stop executive branch actions that majorities decry and see to completion a different agenda that members ran on and won

Passing the Buck: Congress, the Budget, and Deficits

In the past thirty years, Congress has dramatically changed its response to unpopular deficit spending. While the landmark Congressional Budget Act of 1974 tried to increase congressional budgeting powers, new budget processes created in the 1980s and 1990s were all explicitly designed to weaken member, majority, and institutional budgeting prerogatives. These later reforms shared the premise that Congress cannot naturally forge balanced budgets without new automatic mechanisms and enhanced presidential oversight. So Democratic majorities in Congress gave new budgeting powers to Presidents Reagan and Bush, and then Republicans did the same for President Clinton. Passing the Buck examines how Congress is increasing delegation of a wide variety of powers to the president in recent years. Jasmine Farrier assesses why institutional ambition in the early 1970s turned into institutional ambivalence about whether Congress is equipped to handle its constitutional duties. Jasmine Farrier is assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisville. While congressional delegation and abdication, particularly in the area of war powers, has long been noted, Farrier\u27s research provides evidence that the problem extends into other congressional prerogatives as well. —APSA Legislative Studies Section Newsletter An excellent account of the political tensions inherent in the modern congressional budget process. Farrier offers an important exceedingly intelligent study of a central concern for US governance and the balance of power. Highly recommended. —Choice A comprehensive and important study of how Congress has reformed the budget process over the past several decades. Passing the Buck offers an informative perspective on the formal changes that have been made in the congressional budget process. —Daniel Palazzolo, author of The Speaker and the Budget: Leadership in the Post- A timely and compelling example of first-rate scholarship. —Lawrence C. Dodd Well written, comprehensive, and clear in her approach. Policymakers, policy analysts, students, academics, and researchers interested in the federal budget process will benefit from reading this book. —Perspectives on Political Science Well written and researched and raises interesting questions about delegation of authority in congressional research, as well as the history of congressional budgeting. —Perspectives on Politics Farrier sets out to understand why Congress \u27tells the country that it is not well suited to making tough decisions on major policy questions.\u27 . . . A highly informative read. —Political Science Quarterlyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_american_politics/1029/thumbnail.jp

Congressional Ambivalence: The Political Burdens of Constitutional Authority

Is the United States Congress dead, alive, or trapped in a moribund cycle? When confronted with controversial policy issues, members of Congress struggle to satisfy conflicting legislative, representative, and oversight duties. These competing goals, along with the pressure to satisfy local constituents, cause members of Congress to routinely cede power on a variety of policies, express regret over their loss of control, and later return to the habit of delegating their power. This pattern of institutional ambivalence undermines conventional wisdom about congressional party resurgence, the power of oversight, and the return of the so-called imperial presidency. This book examines Congress\u27s frequent delegation of power by analyzing primary source materials such as bills, committee reports, and the Congressional Record. The book demonstrates that Congress is caught between abdication and ambition and that this ambivalence affects numerous facets of the legislative process. Explaining specific instances of post-delegation disorder, including Congress\u27s use of new bills, obstruction, public criticism, and oversight to salvage its lost power, the book exposes the tensions surrounding Congress\u27s roles in recent hot-button issues such as base-closing commissions, presidential trade promotion authority, and responses to the attacks of September 11. It also examines shifting public rhetoric used by members of Congress as they emphasize, in institutionally self-conscious terms, the difficulties of balancing their multiple roles.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_history/1025/thumbnail.jp