President Obama has said it before and I'll say it again: presidential power is limited. There are many things a president cannot control, the price of gasoline, for example. We know the amount of petroleum in the world is finite. Someday it will be all used up. In the meantime, the price of gasoline and other petroleum products will rise, gradually at first, then precipitously. Neither President Obama nor any president elected in the future will be able to change those facts.
The president also is limited in power by two other branches of government. Sometimes the power ratio is 1:2, sometimes 2:1, and, theoretically, it could be 3:0. That's what the founding fathers intended – balance of power. President Obama's power has been diminished greatly by congressional divisiveness during the last two years of his term in office. He got a little break from the judicial branch when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Health Care Act passed by a sympathetic House of Representative early in his administration.
Now a recession appears to be looming in Europe. A recession there will surely affect the United States economy. No American president can change that either. Power is limited.
If the president can't change these things, it certainly is not in my power to change anything whatsoever. Happily, I'm reading about metaphysics and geology, for both of these subjects lend the long view to human affairs, which are only a blip in time. It's as if I were enrolled in two classes at a university: I study, I look up the meaning of words, my vocabulary is expanding, and I'm pretty much distracted from news of the day.
But I must say the winner of the coming election may be the big loser after all. His power will be limited in the face of this rapidly changing world.
The president also is limited in power by two other branches of government. Sometimes the power ratio is 1:2, sometimes 2:1, and, theoretically, it could be 3:0. That's what the founding fathers intended – balance of power. President Obama's power has been diminished greatly by congressional divisiveness during the last two years of his term in office. He got a little break from the judicial branch when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Health Care Act passed by a sympathetic House of Representative early in his administration.
Now a recession appears to be looming in Europe. A recession there will surely affect the United States economy. No American president can change that either. Power is limited.
If the president can't change these things, it certainly is not in my power to change anything whatsoever. Happily, I'm reading about metaphysics and geology, for both of these subjects lend the long view to human affairs, which are only a blip in time. It's as if I were enrolled in two classes at a university: I study, I look up the meaning of words, my vocabulary is expanding, and I'm pretty much distracted from news of the day.
But I must say the winner of the coming election may be the big loser after all. His power will be limited in the face of this rapidly changing world.
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