Executive Branch & Bureaucracy

Learning Objectives

  • What are the roles of the President?
  • What are the formal and informal powers of the President?
  • Should our president be stronger or weaker than Congress?
  • Why was the Electoral College established?
  • Does the character of a president make a difference in how he does his job?
  • What are the main differences between the White House Staff and the Cabinet?
  • What factors have led to the expansion of Presidential power?
  • How does the President utilize executive orders and agreements to circumvent Congress?
  • What happened to make the bureaucracy a “fourth branch” of national government?
  • What is the role of the federal bureaucracy in implementing, managing, and evaluating federal policy?
  • What are the different types of bureaucratic institutions and how does their oversight reflect their function?​
  • What efforts have been made to reform the bureaucracy?

Vocabulary

Legislative veto
Line-item veto
Impeachment
Impoundment
Bureaucracy
Regulatory Commissions
Executive orders
Executive agreements
Executive privilege
Take Care Clause
Merit system
Standard operating procedures
White House Staff
Cabinet
Iron Triangle
iron triangles
patronage
civil service
merit principle
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
GS (General Scheduling) rating
Issue Network
Revolving door
Executive Office of the President
Independent Agencies
Government Corporations
Senior Executive Service (SES)
independent regulatory commission
government corporations
independent executive agency
policy implementation
administrative discretion
discretionary authority

 
​Text Reading Guides (Optional)
​Reading Guide Pages 360-365
Reading Guide Pages 366-370
Reading Guide Pages 371-380
Reading Guide Pages 381-390
Reading Guide Pages 394-401 
Reading Guide Pages 402-407 
Reading Guide Pages 407-412 
Reading Guide Pages 413-418
​
Assignments & Handouts
 
Roles & Powers of POTUS doc
Roles & Powers of POTUS key
Expanding Powers of POTUS docs
You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse Under Obama doc
The White House & Cabinet disc
Organization of the Bureaucracy doc
Bureaucratic Pizza doc
Bureaucracy Webquest doc
Bureaucracy Infographic Rubric doc 
Infographic Research doc
Piktochart Tutorial video
Bureaucratic Pathologies doc
Holy Government doc
​Iron Triangles Reading doc
POTUS Review
Unit 5 Exam Review worksheet
Unit 5 Exam FRQ hints