Swings and roundabouts

Luke

As his time in office winds-up Dubya faces the biggest financial crisis that the US has seen since 1929.

El Presidente puts forward a massive rescue plan to ‘save the world’ and all ends well. In the movies that's what happens, America always saves the world. In this unhappy tale though, America looks like it’s not going to save the world at all…. Quite the opposite.


The $700 billion rescue package that Bush was proposing went against pretty much everything that the Commander-in-Chief and his party stand for. Still, it was a bold move and to have it rejected was a real punch in the face…. but hang on, I thought the president was the most powerful man in the world, if this was his idea why couldn’t he just pass it?


The powers of the president are limited by the American Constitution in a big way.
If you fancy a really dry read, have a look here

The checks and balances in the American system were drawn up and codified from the experience of being ruled under an iron fist and they are pretty far-reaching in the ways in which they keep the reigns on presidential power.


OK, so he’s commander-in-chief and can deploy troops anywhere, of his own volition but pretty much everything he does has to be rubber-stamped by the Senate... this includes going to war.
At the moment the Senate has an equal number of Republican and Democrat members, so any incoming president may have a difficult time getting anything done, just as Bush has had since the mid-terms.

I have simplified here to levels of ignorance that only an outsider can have about the American political system. But, it still remains true that as we get all caught up in the hype and hysteria surrounding the election of the next US head of state, it really is a lot more complex than we think.

The actions of the current US president and Congress over the next four weeks will affect our lives far more than the anything the next president will be able to do in the next four years.