Title: American presidential power is not leading to dictatorship.
Headings: Is America Heading Toward Dictatorship?
Is America Heading Toward Dictatorship?
Presidents have more power today, but there are good historical reasons for the trend.

Content: As far as I know, no one has ever shown that Bush’s signing statements deprived anyone of his legal rights, and Obama has continued this practice. Advertisement
Advertisement
Even more to the point, when you try to identify the most important and controversial actions of Bush and Obama, all of them involve congressional consent. For Bush, Congress authorized the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the expansion of surveillance and detention authorities, a major tax cut, No Child Left Behind, and $700 billion to bail out the financial system in 2008. For Obama, Congress authorized a $787 billion stimulus plan, the Affordable Care Act, and a major overhaul of financial regulation. The presidents’ unilateral actions were incremental or interstitial—acting sometimes ahead of congressional authorization, modifying laws in light of changed circumstances and bureaucratic imperatives, building on existing authorities. Advertisement
So why the hand-wringing? Presidential powers have undoubtedly increased over the centuries, but the reason is just that effective government today requires a strong presidency. The small agrarian society of the late 18 th century could be governed mainly by the states; the tiny federal government employed a few thousand people, and it handled things like postal services, customs, and defense against Native Americans. In the 19 th century, railroads, telegraphs, and telephones knitted together a national market, ultimately requiring the federal government to step in and regulate across state lines.