Is being the President all it's cracked up to be?

ILikeBananas

Every four years hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by the big two parties on trying to become the president. This position has been globally seen as the most powerful politician on earth.

The thing is though, what powers does the president of the USA actually have? If their party controls both houses of congress then they should be able to pass whatever bills are in their manifestos. But as can be seen from the current debt ceiling debacle, if you don't have control of one of the houses then your power is dramatically reduced.

The taoiseach of Ireland or the Prime minister of the UK will almost always, by virtue of their position, be leading a majority in a dominant lower house. They can therefore go full steam ahead and pass any reasonable laws (obviously if they are in a coalition their power is somewhat diluted).

In America though you can even have the case, as happened to both of the previous presidents, where the opposition party control both houses of congress. What then for the president? Are they reduced to a figurehead, albeit still with their veto power,the power to appoint senior federal positions and the position of commander in chief?

Denerick

Presidents envy British Prime Ministers. Prime Ministers control a government, can pass laws much more easily, and are able to scare and force the governing party into submission. Presidents, even in the unlikely and rare occurance where the party they nominally lead holds both the houses of congress, still must try and unite an unwieldy political party. (If America was European, it would by rights have five parties; two centrist parties - one right and one left leaning - a free market liberal party, a socially conservative party and an extreme populist party in the vein of the Italian Northern League)

In other ways British Prime ministers envy American Presidents - they have truly awesome influence, a lot of power in the field of foreign policy and commander in chief to the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen. Its influence over domestic policy is based on summoning the forces of public opinion (President Lyndon Johnson was the supreme example of this) and the ability to crack skulls in congress (Jimmy Carter was terrible in this regard, other Presidents such as Reagan were better at enforcing discipline in their own party)

In short, the US presidency is about as powerful as the man who sits in the Oval Office. You either be an Imperial President, one who enforces his decisions by a combination of force and the power of public opinion (Johnson) or a lame duck one (Carter) It remains to be seen whether Obama will be a Johnson or a Carter.