Presidential Power and Accountability: Toward a Presidential Accountability System by Bruce Buchanan

Author:Bruce Buchanan [Buchanan, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415536547
Google: JRinWVm3NEgC
Goodreads: 13712186
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Congressional Budget Office

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is also Congress-centered and describes its role as offering objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget. It also produces the information and estimates required for the congressional budget process. The CBO has built a reputation for solid impartial analysis of economic and policy issues. While the party controlling Congress gets to select the head of the agency, both parties have generally turned to the CBO’s respected academics who do not attempt to use the agency to push a political agenda. CBO describes itself as a professional, nonpartisan staff office that does not make recommendations on policy. That nonpartisan stance has been instrumental in preserving the agency’s reputation for professionalism and has enhanced the credibility of its products. In addition to its independent analyses and estimates relating to the budget and the economy CBO presents economic budget and policy options and alternatives for the Congress to consider. It routinely discloses the assumptions and methods it uses, which enhances the general perception of its products as objective and impartial.

CBO’s substantive overlap with the PAP is minimal. But it offers an important model of how to create and sustain a reputation for analytic integrity in the context of a work environment made contentious and controversial by partisan disagreements. From its inception in 1974, CBO has regularly made both political parties angry, but has managed to sustain its credibility nonetheless, as evidenced by the fact that both sides routinely cite its analytic products (Harwood, March 23, 1993: A2). The PAP will also have to maintain the respect of all sides in the face of predictable unhappiness in some quarters with some of its work, which is what makes CBO a useful model.

But there is an important difference. Unlike CBO (or GAO, for that matter) the PAP must maintain its analytic credibility despite being partial to one side of an argument. It must do so because of the role of its Policy Board (discussed below) in advocating standards for presidential accountability rooted not in partisanship but in equally controversial constitutional interpretation.

The mission of the PAP is to work toward the calibration of the balance between the encouragement and restraint of presidents described in Chapter 2. Though far from rigidly “originalist,” it tilts more toward the intent of the framers insofar as the theory behind the separation of power is concerned (cf., Kleinerman, 2009: 76–91) than does the status quo. It thus seeks to advance what can fairly be described as a “policy” about presidential power and accountability, as noted above. This is likely to inspire criticism from those who see things differently: some presidents, particular scholars, journalists, pundits, and others who embrace expansive (e.g., Hamiltonian) theories of presidential power, and who can be expected to offer rival maxims based on different understandings of the Constitution.

These potential differences notwithstanding, if PAP is to achieve respect for the quality of its research and arguments

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