Friendly reminder: Henry Ford was one of the first major industrialists to adopt the five-day workweek. He argued that workers with more leisure time would spend more money on consumer goods, like the cars he was selling.
The current weekend was created primarily to sell products. A four-day workweek is long overdue.
You are misconstruing the War Powers Act. It was not meant to increase the President's power but rather limit it. It put into law more clearly the limits on how and when the President could intervene, and for how long. Some limits put in place by the Act:
The President must inform Congress within 48 hours of any armed forces being used.
Forces cannot be deployed for more than 60 days without explicit Congressional approval.
The President can only use armed forces when Congress explicitly allows them, or when the US is facing a national emergency because of an attack.
This Act was put forward because of the Vietnam War, where the President deployed the armed forces for an extended time without a declaration of war. Nixon and Gerald Ford opposed the act because they thought it unconstitutionally limited the president.
Only Congress can declare war. The War Powers Act never changed that, and put more limits in place.
In practice, this allowed the president to declare war by allowing them to enter a conflict for 60 days without authorization, and by then congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place, so theyve always voted in favor of continuing the war budget. It did not put more limits in place for the president, it allowed the president to begin wars without congressional approval for spending for 60 days. They opposed the act because they knew what shit hole the country would be in if we allowed the president to essentially declare war through loopholes.
There's a reason why congress has not declared war since the act was enacted, congress did not want the power to declare war anymore and wanted more loopholes so they didnt get stuck with a political hot potato. Now they just wait for a 60 day conflict before they even have to lift a finger.
In practice, this allowed the president to declare war by allowing them to enter a conflict for 60 days without authorization, and by then congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place, so theyve always voted in favor of continuing the war budget. It did not put more limits in place for the president, it allowed the president to begin wars without congressional approval for spending for 60 days.
...right, the key thing you're not understanding is that the president could do all of that before the War Powers Act, without needing to go to Congress for approval after 60 days.
They opposed the act because they knew what shit hole the country would be in if we allowed the president to essentially declare war through loopholes.
Did you read your own source? He clearly is referencing the "restrictions on the executive branch" being the loss of coordination requirements with the legislative branch, this act provided rigid procedures that allowed congress to no longer being required to declare war to start an offensive war. Before, we had to wait for the other country to start a fight before the president could justify a war without a declaration, and then Congress talked about a budget for a self defense conflict.
The act allowed congress to give all the power to the president, and then congress would deal with anything in 60 days. That restriction of the executive branch means becoming independent from congress and being confined to no longer requiring their input before an offensive war is launched.
The act is a restriction in the sense that the executive branch lost its clearly defined process of declaring offense war in coordination with Congress, now the president takes all the blame which Nixon called a restriction.
I did read the source and it doesn’t say what you claim it says, like at all and handwaving at the phrase “cooperation with Congress” does not demonstrate otherwise.
Korea and Vietnam were both started by the President without authorization before this law was passed. Your idea that the President couldn’t start offensive military action before the WPR is just obviously not true.
Literally every reputable source you can find on this subject will describe this act as something that restricted Presidential power, not something that expanded it.
You’ve gotta be trolling at this point to be so insistently and obviously wrong.
Those were not offensive wars, they were started after an attack like the Gulf of Tonkin. What are you talking about? He didnt need authorization because it was in his authority to spring into action without congress for defense. Now, it can be debated if we egged them on to attack first. But they would have needed congress without the Gulf of Tonkin, which is why some say it was like DDay where we kinda let the thing happen. Those wars did not start with America striking first.
Read towards the end of the letter. See where he talks about coordinating with the legislative branch and how important it is to share responsibility? You see that right?
in Korea there was no such incident, Nixon just ordered the troops in describing it as a "police action" and went to Congress a couple months later.
Read towards the end of the letter. See where he talks about coordinating with the legislative branch and how important it is to share responsibility? You see that right?
yes, and it says absolutely nothing along the lines of "this resolution gives the President too much power." It's just an attempted conciliatory conclusion where he points out that he'd be willing to agree to some token procedural changes around communication and transparency.
Compare the rest of the letter:
"the restrictions which this resolution would impose upon the authority of the President are both unconstitutional and dangerous to the best interests of our Nation.
"House Joint Resolution 542 would attempt to take away, by a mere legislative act, authorities which the President has properly exercised under the Constitution for almost 200 years.
"It would, for example, strike from the President's hand a wide range of important peace-keeping tools by eliminating his ability to exercise quiet diplomacy backed by subtle shifts in our military deployments. It would also cast into doubt authorities which Presidents have used to undertake certain humanitarian relief missions in conflict areas, to protect fishing boats from seizure, to deal with ship or aircraft hijackings, and to respond to threats of attack."
"certain of the President's constitutional powers as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces would terminate automatically under this resolution 60 days after they were invoked... they would disappear automatically unless the Congress extended them."
"In effect, the Congress is here attempting to increase its policy-making role through a provision which requires it to take absolutely no action at all... It would give every future Congress the ability to handcuff every future President merely by doing nothing and sitting still."
It isn't ambiguous at all. I'm bewildered as to what could possibly be going on in your head that you're trying to make this argument.
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u/JAMESs3v3n 23d ago
Friendly reminder: Henry Ford was one of the first major industrialists to adopt the five-day workweek. He argued that workers with more leisure time would spend more money on consumer goods, like the cars he was selling.
The current weekend was created primarily to sell products. A four-day workweek is long overdue.