Government Power In The United States

Government power where did it start? How did it come to be? Throughout history the United States government has changed dramatically. The biggest jump was the creation of the Constitution, which laid out the basic rules and regulations that our government was suppose to follow. A big contributor was James Madison, the man that everyone referred to as the “ Father of the Constitution.” He created a philosophy that ended up being called the Madisonian Model. First appearing in the Federalist No. 10, published in 1787, the philosophy gave a general idea on how the government should be run. The idea was to disperse the government power among several different branches. It also established safeguards to prevent certain people or groups from gaining too much power and controlling the government. To get more in depth with how the powers of the government are controlled many limits were created. Some of these limits include federalism which is the division of

Before Nixon could be impeached he resigned from presidency. After his resignation he was Gerald Ford became President and soon after pardoned Richard Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate affair making our 38th President no better than the 37th. The aftermath of the Watergate scandal and all of Nixon’s wrong doings led to changes in campaign finance reform and a more aggressive media attitude.

Following the Executive branch and its abuse of powers the legislative branch has put in its fair share of abusiveness. A recent, very controversial issue is their abuse of taxing powers. Beginning with the creation of the constitution Congress was given specific powers for taxing. At stated in the Constitution “Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes… to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”