its inception:
Executive Office of the President
The Executive Office of the President is not a single office or department, but a collection of agencies that are all directly responsible for helping the president to deal with Congress and manage the larger executive branch. Specific elements have changed over the years; currently, the EOP consists of nine separate divisions: the White House Office, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Council of Economic Advisers, National Security Council (NSC), Office of Policy Development, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Office of Administration.
In contrast to modern presidents, early presidents had few people to help them, because the Constitution contained no specific provision or allowance for presidential staff. As a result, presidents became overworked and exhausted. Thomas Jefferson, for example, wrote that the presidency "brings nothing but unceasing drudgery and daily loss of friends." In many cases, presidents used their own money to hire their sons, nephews, or in-laws to work as clerks or secretaries. In 1825, President James Monroe requested that Congress appropriate funds for presidential staff, but Congress was unwilling to spend the money. It was not until 1857 that Congress approved a specific appropriation for the president to hire a private secretary. Throughout the rest of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress slowly appropriated more money for presidential staff, allowing the president to hire a greater number of secretaries, clerks, and other assistants, such as stenographers and messengers.
The crisis of the Great Depression in the 1930s created a need for the presidential staff to be fundamentally reorganized and expanded. Whereas presidents of the nineteenth century had functioned with very limited powers, Franklin D. Roosevelt took on a much stronger role, developing his collection of New Deal programs to try to grapple with the tremendous social and economic problems facing the country. These programs resulted in a much larger and more complex federal bureaucracy that was difficult to manage, leading Roosevelt to create the Committee on Administrative Management, popularly known as the Brownlow Committee. Headed by Louis Brownlow, the task of the Brownlow Committee was to study the organization of the executive branch and to suggest solutions to the problem of administrative management.
The Brownlow report, completed in 1937, made several recommendations, including the creation of the Executive Office of the President, which would bring together agencies concerned with executive branch activities, such as budgeting, efficiency, personnel, and planning. Though Congress rejected other proposals contained in the Brownlow report, it approved the creation of the EOP, by passing the Reorganization Act in April 1939 (3 U.S.C.A. § 106, 31 U.S.C.A. §§ 701, 1101). As a result, key managerial agencies, such as the Bureau of the Budget and the National Resources Planning Board, were moved into the EOP; the benefit of this move was that crucial management functions could be performed by staff working directly under the president, completing the routine tasks necessary for the government to function. Though the specific elements of the EOP have changed since Roosevelt's presidency, the Brownlow report laid the foundations for the basic administrative structure that allows presidents to manage the numerous and diverse parts of the executive branch.
The Cabinet and Executive Departments
The cabinet consists of the president, the vice president, the heads of the fourteen executive departments, and any other government officials the president wishes to include, such as the head of the OMB or the head of the NSC. In theory, cabinet members are supposed to serve as expert advisers to the president, but in practice, they more often operate as advocates for their department and are seldom involved in actual presidential decision making.
The Constitution makes no specific reference to a president's cabinet; rather, the cabinet is an institution that has evolved over the years. The first executive departments (the Departments of State, War, and the Treasury) were created in 1789 by Washington, who frequently held conferences with their heads (Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Alexander Hamilton, respectively). By 1793, James Madison was using the termcabinet to refer to these conferences. The name and the institution stuck, and the cabinet became a fixed element of the executive branch.
Presidents have used their cabinets in widely different ways. In the nineteenth century, cabinet appointments were often made for political reasons, rather than because a president knew or trusted the particular individuals selected. As a result, some presidents had trouble controlling their cabinet, and others met with their cabinet only infrequently. Andrew Jackson, for example, virtually ignored his official cabinet in favor of his kitchen cabinet, a close circle of personal friends whom he trusted for information and advice. In the twentieth century, cabinets have most often served as a forum for the president to discuss issues and collect opinions; rarely, if ever, have they served as a decision-making body. Instead, the White House staff members frequently function as primary advisers to the president.
The largest organizational units within the executive branch are the fourteen executive departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. These departments, which vary greatly in size and function, are responsible for administering the great majority of the federal government's activities and programs.
Agencies and Corporations
The executive branch includes a large number of agencies for which the president is responsible. Some of these agencies function independently; others are connected to an executive department but may still function as a largely autonomous unit. These agencies manage specific areas of government operations and have little in common except that they lie outside of the traditional management structure of the executive departments. In general, they come in three types: regulatory agencies, independent executive agencies, and government corporations.
Regulatory agencies and commissions control certain economic activities and consumer affairs. These agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Regulatory agencies and commissions are created by Congress when members believe that certain economic or commercial activities need to be regulated. They accomplish the task of regulation in various ways, depending on their mandate from Congress. Typical methods of regulation include requiring licensing for specific professions and requiring products to be labeled accurately. Some regulatory agencies operate independently, some are governed by bipartisan commissions, and some report to an executive department.
Independent executive agencies are not part of any executive department; rather, they report directly to the president. These agencies include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the General Services Administration. Frequently, Congress makes such agencies independent so that they can operate without the burden of bureaucratic regulations or the influence of particular executive departments. For example, NASA was made an independent agency so that it could be created more quickly, function more freely, and avoid the demands and influence of the Defense Department.
Government corporations are a unique type of agency in that they function like businesses, providing necessary public services that would be too expensive or unprofitable for private companies to provide. They include the U.S. Postal Service; Amtrak; and the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created to develop electric power in the Tennessee Valley region. Corporations have more independence than do agencies of any other type. They can buy and sell real estate, and they can sue and be sued. They are not dependent on annual appropriations from Congress, and they retain their own earnings. Congress does provide long-term funding for government corporations, however, so it retains a certain amount of control over their operations.
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