The Executive Departments

US GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY

Plan to the lecture

1. US GOVERNMENT

- Executive Branch

- Legislative Branch

- Judicial Branch

2. Political Parties in the United States

3. ELECTION SYSTEM

4. THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES

5. NATIONAL SYMBOLS OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

6. ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION OF THE UNITED STATES

7. US ECONOMY

 

(Слайд 2) Vocabulary

provide for	- предусматривать
establishment	- образование, учреждение
electoral college	- коллегия выборщиков
elector	- выборщик
subsequently	- впоследствии
select	- отбирать, выбирать
as a token of appreciation	- как признание заслуг
by ballot	- тайным голосованием
require	- требовать
registered mail	- заказное письмо
duplicate copy	- копия
court	- суд
majority	- большинство голосов
joint session	- совместное заседание
inauguration	- инаугурация, вступление в должность

be inaugurated	- быть введенным в должность
inauguration	- торжественное введение в должность
bury	- хоронить
while in office	- за время пребывания в должности
term of office	- срок избрания

 

(Слайд 3) 1. US GOVERNMENT

The operation of the US government is based on the US Constitution which was adopted by Congress in 1789.

Under the federal system of government some of the most important powers are given to the federal (or national) government. The rest of the powers are exercised by the states. (Слайд 4) The national government is composed of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Certain powers are given to each of the branches, but these powers overlap in such a way that the powers of one branch are limited by the powers of the others. This arrangement is known as the system of checks and balances. It is a basic part of the structure of the American governmental system. No person or institution can have unlimited authority. Each branch of the national government shares and limits some of the powers of the other branches.

(Слайд 5) The system of “checks and balances” is clearly illustrated by the president's relations with the Congress. The president proposes legislation, but the Congress does not have to enact it. He cannot put a treaty into effect without approval by two-thirds of the Senate. In 1973 the legislature limited the President’s powers as commander-in-chief by prohibiting commandment of armed forces abroad for combat without specific congressional approval. The Senate must approve most of the president’s appointments to the executive and judicial branches.

Another example of “checks and balances” is that the Congress must authorize money that is used to pay for programs which are administered by the executive branch. In this way the legislature exercises an important check on the executive branch and the power of the president. The financial authority or spending power of the legislature checks the spending power of the president.

 

A System of “Checks and Balances”

The Constitution provides for three equal and separate branches (Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, Judicial Branch)but each is to some extent dependent on the other two and there is a partial interweaving of their functions.

 

(Слайд 6) Executive Branch

President suggests legislation to Congress	President appoints federal judges
Issues executive orders, rules and regulations with the force of legislation	May grant pardons from punishment for offences against the United States
May veto legislation passed by Congress

 

The Executive Power

The President, as chief executive, is the most important government figure. The president negotiates foreign treaties and appoints government heads. He commands the armed forces and sends and receives diplomatic officials. In effect, he makes foreign policy. As head of the executive branch he sees to it that laws enacted by the legislature are carried out. He is also the leader of his political party. The president and the vice-president are the only officials chosen in a nation-wide election.

According to the Constitution a president’s office is limited to two terms of 4 years each. It also describes how a president can be removed from office (impeachment procedure).

The executive branch consists of 13 departments and many independent agencies. At the time of editing the latest edition of this text these agencies were undergoing a major reorganization designed to strengthen a new agency of Homeland Security. The department heads (most of them called secretaries, except the Attorney General) form the president’s cabinet. The president has many sources of advice and assistance – both private and public, including representatives of the departments and agencies. He also relies very much on members of his own White House staff.

 

The Executive Departments

Department	Head of Department
State	Secretary of State
Treasury	Secretary of the Treasury
Defense	Secretary of Defense
Justice	Attorney General
Interior	Secretary of the Interior
Agriculture	Secretary of Agriculture
Commerce	Secretary of Commerce
Labor	Secretary of Labor
Health and Human Services	Secretary of Health and Human Services
Housing and Urban Development	Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Transportation	Secretary of Transportation
Energy	Secretary of Energy
Education	Secretary of Education

 

Almost three million civilians work in the departments and agencies of the executive branch. This number exceeds the total employed by America’s seven largest corporations. These government employees make up the federal bureaucracy. These are civil servants who are hired under a system in which merit and training are supposed to be the basis of employment and promotion. There are approximately ten thousand civil service job classifications which range from a bridge engineer to a clerk. Ten per cent of these federal employees work in Washington D.C.; 6% work outside the U.S.; the rest are located throughout the 50 states.

 

(Слайд 7) Legislative Branch

Appropriates for Executive	Appropriates funds for the Judiciary
May create or abolish Executive Departments	May create or abolish lower federal courts
May impeach and try members of the Executive Branch	May impeach and try members of the judiciary
May override a Presidential veto	Decides how many justices may sit on the Supreme Court
The Senate must approve Presidential appointments and treaties

(Слайд 8) The Legislature

The legislative branch of the federal government is represented by Congress. There are two houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate is composed of 100 voting members, two from each of the 50 states. They are elected for a six-year term and the number of their terms is unlimited. The House of Representatives has 435 voting members in addition to two representatives from Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia who are not entitled to vote. The members of the House are called representatives or congressmen (or congresswomen). They are elected for a two-year term.

Many members of the Congress are regularly re-elected, and so some of them serve for over 20 years.

The number of representatives from each state depends on the state's population. Every ten years the U.S. Census reports the distribution of the population throughout the entire country. The congressional seats are then re-distributed accordingly. California claims the largest delegation. New York ranks second. Alaska, Nevada, and some others have only one representative.

Congress also performs the function of investigation, which involves examination of government activities to determine if the executive branch is performing its duties properly and if new legislation is needed.

Congress also plays an informative role. It informs the public about different and important subjects, such as crime or space exploration. The most widely publicized Senate investigations in the 1970s were the “Watergate hearings”, when a special Senate committee investigated charges of illegal activities by members of the White House staff during President Nixon’s administration. In the 1980s the so-called “Irangate” hearings drew wide-spread attention.

(Слайд 9) Judicial Branch

May declare Congressional legislation unconstitutional

May declare any Presidential or Executive action unconstitutional

 

The national government’s power is not limited by states’ power. The only powers the states have are those the Federal government has not reserved for itself. But in a dispute the Federal government can and will use military force if necessary, e. g. integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950s.

The powers of the national and state governments are limited by certain constitutional guarantees of civil liberties for individual citizens. These guarantees are known as the Bill of Rights. They are amendments to the original constitution. They forbid the government from restriding or limiting such civil liberties as freedom of speech, of religion, and of the press, and they guarantee to all citizens (at least in principle) certain legal procedures and rights.

The powers of the federal (national) government include the right to declare war; the right to tax; the right to borrow and coin money, and to regulate its value; the right to regulate commerce between the states; the right to maintain a postal system.

Every state has its own constitution. It also has the three-branch-es-of-government structure. State chief executives are called governors and state legislators are usually known as representatives and senators.

The powers of the state are to control education, regulate corporations and businesses within the state, determine most election procedures, and regulate local governments. The states also make and administer civil (citizens’ private rights) and criminal laws.

The Constitution has been amended 26 times. An amendment may be proposed by the federal legislature or by a constitutional convention, or a meeting of representatives from two-thirds of the states. In either case the amendment must be approved by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

 

The Judicial Branch

There is a Supreme Court of the United States, the members of which are appointed for life by the president with Senate approval and federal courts which are created by Congress.

The Supreme Court is composed of nine judges, who are called justices. It is the highest court in the nation. It interprets the laws and reviews them to determine whether they conform to the U.S. Constitution. If the majority of justices rule that the law in question violates the Constitution, the law is declared unconstitutional and becomes invalid. This process is known as judicial review. All lower courts follow the rulings of the Supreme Court.

Federal Courts have the power to rule on both criminal and civil cases. Criminal action under federal jurisdiction includes such cases as treason, destruction of government property, counterfeiting, hijacking, and narcotics violations. Civil cases include violations of other people’s rights, such as damaging property, violating a contract, or making libelous statements. If found guilty, a person may be required to pay a certain amount of money, called damages, but he or she is never sent to prison. A convicted criminal, on the other hand, may be imprisoned.

The Bill of Rights guarantees a trial by jury in all criminal cases. A jury is a group of citizens – usually 12 persons – who make the decision on a case.

The lowest federal court is the district court. Each state has at least one district court. Cases from such a court may be reviewed by the next higher court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals.

For the first 75 years of Supreme Court history, the most important cases involved conflicts over the authority of the national government-From the middle 1800s until the late 1930s the major decisions of the Court concerned economic regulation – control of business activities and setting economic policy by the federal government. During the past 50 years the most important Supreme Court cases have concerned civil rights, civil liberties, and issues of criminal law. Recently, cases involving environmental and consumer law have been gaining importance.

Most state judges are elected for limited terms. State courts handle criminal and other cases that do not come under federal jurisdiction.

The often ambiguous line between state and federal authority has resulted in recurring conflicts between federal and state officials throughout American history.

 

(Слайд 10) 2. Political Parties in the United States

In the United States there are two major political parties, the Dem­ocratic and the Republican. The Democratic Party is the older of the two, tracing its history back to the time of Andrew Jackson in the 1820. The Republican Party, which followed the Federalist Party and the Whigs, was organized in the 1850, primarily as an antislavery party. In 1860 the Democratic Party was split into two factions, the northern and the southern Democrats, each putting up its own candidate for president. The Republicans received more votes than either faction of the Democrats, and Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

Over the years the positions of the two major parties have been changing and adapting themselves to the currently important problems of public policy. If one reads the platforms of the two parties, one finds that there is very little difference between them.

That the two parties greatly resemble each other comes about chiefly because of the two factors. One is that on a national basis each political party is actually a loose association of the party organizations within the various states. The second reason is that each party is more interested in winning elections than in putting across a particular policy or law. It has been aptly said that each political party is not a single party, but a collection of fifty parties which are temporarily drawn together every four years for the purpose of winning the presidency.

Political parties in the United States are entirely free of the party discipline that characterizes political parties in Europe and Asia. It is not necessary to make an application to join the Democratic or the Republican Party; there are no membership dues; party leaders cannot expel a member. The nature of the election laws in some states, in fact, makes it possible for a voter to keep his political party affiliation secret.

 

(Слайд 11) 3. ELECTION SYSTEM

The election of the President of the United States is provided for in the Constitution through the establishment of an electoral college in each State, for each presidential election. Under the Constitution, the November election is not for Presidential candidates themselves but for the electors who subsequently choose a President.

Today, electors are usually selected to run as a token of appreciation for their service to their political party.

Though the Constitution provides that the electors shall vote tor President “by ballot”, a practice implying a secret vote, the voting is not at all secret in many states. After balloting the electors are required to send lists of their votes by registered mail to the President of the Senate in Washington, with duplicate copies to the General Services Administrator and the local U.S. district court. The system can give an electoral majority to a Presidential candidate who does not have a popular majority. That is what happened in 1968 when Nixon was elected President. On January 6, the votes are counted by the President of the Senate in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Today the main stages of the presidential election campaign are:

1. Primaries.

2. National conventions (in July or August).

3. Election of the electors (on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November).

4. Election of the President by the electoral college (on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December).

5. A joint session of the Congress to open the ballots (on January 6).

6. Inauguration of the President (on January 20).

(Слайд 12) 4. The Presidents of the United States

The United States has had over 40 Presidents; Grover Cleveland was elected as the 22nd and the 24th President. The State Department ruled that he must be counted twice. George Bush was the 41st President.

The first President, George Washington, was inaugurated in 1789. He served two terms that ended in 1797. When he died he was mourned in the United States and abroad as one of the great men of the time. He was buried at his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Nine Presidents were elected for two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt served three full terms. He was elected to a fourth term in 1944. He died in 1945, and his term was completed by Harry Truman.

The shortest term was served by William Henry Harrison who died one month after his inauguration in 1841. Four Presidents were killed while in office. The first of these was the 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. He was shot while attending the theater in Washington. James Oarfield was shot a few months after his inauguration and died at the age of forty-nine. William McKinley was killed in Buffalo, New York in 1901. John Kennedy was killed in Texas in 1963.

James Buchanan was the only bachelor to be elected. He was assisted in the social activities of the White House by his niece.

One of the Presidents (Andrew Johnson) was a tailor before he became President. Three of the Presidents – Washington, Grant and Eisenhower were Generals of the Army before they were elected.

The 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt was a Colonel in the Army before he was elected to serve as Vice-President during William McKinley’s term of office. When President McKinley was killed, Theodore Roosevelt became President. He became the youngest man to be called upon to fill presidency. He was forty-two years old. John Kennedy was the youngest person to be elected to the office. He was forty-three at the time he was chosen.

The State of Virginia is known as the “Presidents’ State”. Eight Presidents were born in Virginia and seven were born in Ohio. Some Presidents will be remembered by people as great men of their times.

 

 

(Слайд 13) 5. NATIONAL SYMBOLS OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

National Symbols represent pride and values of the country. United States of America has varied National symbols representing its culture, values and pride.

National Flag of USA

The current version of National Flag of USA was adopted on July 4, 1960.

The National Flag of USA has thirteen equal horizontal stripes with alternate colours red and white. It has a blue rectangle in the top left corner of the flag with 50 white pointed five-stars arranged in nine horizontal rows. The stars are six and five in numbers alternately and 50 in number representing different states.

A book “Our Flag” published in 1989 by House of Representatives explains the significance of colors and stars as:- "The colors of the pales (the vertical stripes) are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valour, and Blue, the color of the Chief (the broad band above the stripes) signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice."

"The star is a symbol of the heavens and the divine goal to which man has aspired from time immemorial; the stripe is symbolic of the rays of light emanating from the sun."

National Bird of USA

The Bald Eagle (haliaeetus leucocephalus) is the National Bird of USA. The Bald Eagle was adopted as the National Bird of United States in 1782. The Bald Eagle symbolizes strength, courage, freedom and immortality. The Bald Eagle is represented in many important places including Great Seal, One-dollar bill, Federal agency seals and President’s flag.