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The Powers of Congress 1947 Coronet Instructional Films; US Constitution and Government
🕑 Added 2019-12-10 21:39:46 +0000 UTCmore at http://quickfound.net/
'Mr. Williams drops off to sleep for a few minutes to find himself confronted with a world in which Congress has been suspended and federal authority dissolved.' DIRECTOR: Ted Peshak.
Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_United_States_Congress
Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Powers of the United States Congress are implemented by the United States Constitution, defined by rulings of the Supreme Court, and by its own efforts and by other factors such as history and custom. It is the chief legislative body of the United States. Some powers are explicitly defined by the Constitution and are called enumerated powers; others have been assumed to exist and are called implied powers...
Powers of the United States Congress are implemented by the United States Constitution, defined by rulings of the Supreme Court, and by its own efforts and by other factors such as history and custom. It is the chief legislative body of the United States. Some powers are explicitly defined by the Constitution and are called enumerated powers; others have been assumed to exist and are called implied powers.
Congress has authority over financial and budgetary matters, through the enumerated power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, extended power of taxation to include income taxes. The Constitution also grants Congress exclusively the power to appropriate funds. This power of the purse is one of Congress' primary checks on the executive branch. Other powers granted to Congress include the authority to borrow money on the credit of the United States, regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states, and coin money. Generally both Senate and House have equal legislative authority although only the House may originate revenue bills and, by tradition, appropriation bills.
The Constitution also gives Congress an important role in national defense, including the exclusive power to declare war, to raise and maintain the armed forces, and to make rules for the military. Some critics charge that the executive branch has usurped Congress's Constitutionally-defined task of declaring war. While historically presidents initiated the process for going to war, they asked for and received formal war declarations from Congress for the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Spanish–American War, World War I, and World War II, although President Theodore Roosevelt's military move into Panama in 1903 did not get Congressional assent. Presidents have initiated war without Congressional war declarations; Truman called the Korean War a "police action" and the Vietnam War lasted over a decade without a declaration of war. In 1970, Time magazine noted: "All told, it has been calculated, U.S. presidents have ordered troops into position or action without a formal congressional declaration a total of 149 times" before 1970. In 1993, one writer noted "Congress's war power has become the most flagrantly disregarded provision in the Constitution," and that the "real erosion (of Congressional authority to declare war) began after World War II." President George H. W. Bush claimed he could begin Operation Desert Storm and launch a "deliberate, unhurried, post–Cold War decision to start a war" without Congressional approval. Critics charge that President George W. Bush largely initiated the Iraq War with little debate in Congress or consultation with Congress, despite a Congressional vote on military force authorization. Disagreement about the extent of congressional versus presidential power regarding war has been present periodically throughout the nation's history...
