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Compare the effectiveness of the Executive in making policy in two political systems you have studied. (12)
Both the UK and US are effective in policy making through their distribution of their power. The US and UK both have many powers such as powers of patronage, passing laws and fiscal powers. The Fiscal powers that the UK and US hold are very important and one of these powers includes the decision of one of these is the yearly national budget. The UK government announces the budget publicly after it has already been decided which means that the public can only accept the budget and do nothing about it. This helps to make the UK government to be influential because with economic policies because they do not have to consult the main opposing party, Labour or any party meaning there is no restriction on the PM economical matters. For example last year the British budget has been massively affected as there was the largest cash increase of £33.9 billion since WW2 per year until 2024 for public services. The US also has an annual national budget, however unlike the UK the budget has to be proposed by an executive and then has to be voted upon, meaning for a budget approval there needs to be a cross-party agreement. This therefore places significant restrictions on the president’s fiscal powers. Therefore If a budget is not approved by the beginning of the new financial year, a government shutdown is triggered. An example of a shutdown was when the US faced the longest government shutdown in American history from late December 2018 to January 2019 which resulted in lasting 35 days. the shutdown cost the US economy overall $11 billion, as well as temporary shut down of quarter of all government activities.
The UK and the US are also effective in making policies through their function of policymaking and how easy it is to act upon these policies. For a bill to be passed as law in the UK it has to be first created by the government before being proposed to the house of commons for its first and second readings before going onto the committee and report stage before its final third reading. The bill is then passed onto the house of lords which follows the same process. The bill is then considered for amendments before finally being sent to the crown for the royal assent before it is finally passed as a bill and voted on by the public. For example, the UK parliament passed the human rights act in 1998 in order to protect every British citizen. However it is difficult for the legislative to pass laws if the Prime minister has the majority of seats in the house of commons, making it harder for the executive to act upon these policies. For a law to be created in the US it has to first be introduced as a bill by an assigned legislative number then a speaker of the house sends it to a committee. While at the committee they discuss what they do and don’t like about the bill, suggests any possible changes before voting to accept or reject the changes. The bill is then passed onto congress where congress and the senate debate and propose amendments for the bill. Then they vote on the bill before it is finally passed to the president who decides to pass or approve and if approved it s signed and becomes law. This makes it more difficult for the president to get their laws passed as they can also be blocked such as budget blocks. However the president is able to issue executive orders which allows them to get around consulting other political representatives when it comes to legislature.
Finally the UK and the US government are effective in making policies through the relationship between the executive and the legislative, such as between the president, the Prime minister, and their supreme courts. The US supreme court is made up by the president but is able to scrutinize the actions of the executive branch, the president by interpreting actions, through judicial review. They are also able to scrutinize the executive through the decisions of lower courts or presidential executive orders even weather of not it is unconstitutional or not. For example Donald Tump was ‘at battle’ with the supreme court over calls foe him to disclose his personal finance records. However the court refused to side with him and his argument that Trumps presidency can protect him from any form of investigation. The British supreme court has a lot of power with being able to hold the government to account and being able to scrutinize them. A prime example of this is when in August of 2019 parliament was ordered to be progued by the Queen upon the Prime Minister’s, Boris Johnston’s, advice. Parliament was the suspended between September 9th – September 12th until the state opening of parliament on October 14th. Parliament had been suspended for 5 weeks and then only reconvened 17 days before the UK was set to leave the European Union on October 31st, meaning that this was seen by many opposition politicians as a controversial and unconstitutional attempt by Boris Johnston to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of his Government's Brexit plans in the weeks leading up to Brexit.