There are three branches of the federal government in the U.S, and they include the executive, the legislative and the Judiciary. The legislative branch of the government is also referred to as the Congress which consists of the Senate and the House. This branch of the federal government is responsible for making laws, declaring war, controlling tax and finance and it regulates multinational and foreign trade. In the last eight weeks, the Congress made several actions on the economy. The following are some of its actions and an explanation of how it is allowable under the powers granted to them by the constitution.
On 11th December 2017, the House had passed a bill to express the support of American partnership with Mexico and Canada. On the same day, it also passed bills to free small banks from certain regulations regarding mortgage as well as exempting all banks from the annual policy if they had remained unchanged or made publicly available. Additionally, it passed bills which requested Iran leaders to submit their reports on the assets that were assigned to them (Revell, 2018). The congress was able to pass these bills because Article I Section 7 of the constitution grants the Congress the power to pass a bill or proposed law to become law. This is after both representatives of the House and the Senate have approved it. Article I Section 8 of the constitution also grants them the ability to regulate commerce with other states (ushistory.org, 2017).
The Congress passed bills that required Iran leaders to hand in their reports on
financing the airline purchases and any connections connected to mismanagement of resources. This is because the Constitution allows the Congress to give punishment for non-loyal securities, persons who counterfeit securities and the current coin of the state (ushistory.org, 2017).
On 18th December 2017, the Congress had passed a tax reform legislation that was given to them by the conference committee members and the legislative funding of the U.S. till Jan 19th, 2018 (ushistory.org, 2017). Under Article I Section 8 of the constitution, the Congress has the power to levy and collect all taxes, duties, pay debts as well as providing general welfare of the citizens of the United States (ushistory.org, 2017). After successful negotiations of both houses and the Senate, they approved and allocated 81B dollars as disaster relief on the same day (Revell, 2018). This required that they ensure that more than one factor is considered before allocating the money and assigning a specific bank to perform this action. This was possible Article I Section 8 of the Constitution grants the Congress power to allocate money, provide defense and general welfare of every citizen in the U.S. Article I Section 1 states that all of the legislative powers granted are vested in the Congress of the U.S (Trethan, 2017).
In conclusion, there are many actions that the Congress has made since November 23rd, 2017. Some of them include condemning Iran’s regime and protests against the nation, appointing new leaders in the courts, and the latest being confirming and appointing new Judges that was done on January 8th, 2018. However, at the moment other proposed actions are to be done by the Congress. All those actions were possible because the constitution supports them.
- Revell, E. (2018). What the 115th Congress Has Done So Far, [News]. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from https://www.countable.us/articles/367-115th-congress-done-far
- Trethan, P. (2017). Powers and Duties of the United States Congress. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from https://www.thoughtco.com/powers-of-the-united-states-congress-3322280
- ushistory.org. (2017). Congress: The People’s Branch? [ushistory.org]. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from http://www.ushistory.org/gov/6.asp