US Infrastructure: Trump's Vision for Economic Growth - Essay Sample

Introduction

Many people in the US rely on the vast infrastructural network from the bridges and roads to the ports, electrical grids, freight rail and provision of internet. The systems in the sector which are in place were constructed many decades ago, and this is what makes the growth of the economy in the US to be stunted. In this regard, the infrastructure policy of President Donald Trump is one of the parts that he had always emphasized to focus on. He sees that an extension of his set career as a developer in real estate is through modernization of the infrastructure in America (Moteff, 237). This is what he makes as a tangible item to add to his legacy as the US president. Therefore the Americans internationals enjoy more reliable as well as effective services in addition to their public investment the infrastructure which have been determined to be on average.

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While campaigning among the Americans, Trump had promised to focus on the issue, and hence there has been an intensive debate on how to improve the infrastructure of the nation. Sceptics of federal spending have compelled for the involvement of new private-sector models claiming that it was more cost-effective and also efficient. Infrastructure in the 20th century is a basis of the foundation for the strong growth of the nation in the aftermath of World War II (Moteff, 237). Through the analysts, investing in new infrastructure as well as current maintenance would have a positive impact on the economy in quite several ways. Through a decrease in the costs of transport and an increase in efficiency and reliability, it would insulate the economy from shocks and also boost the long term competitiveness of the US.

Congress: Representation, Organization, Legislation

The legislative branch is made up of the Senate and the House which is generally referred to as the Congress. In the United States, the Congress is involved in making of the laws, declares war, and keeps the regulation of the interstates as well as the foreign commerce in addition to the regulation of the policies of taxing and spending. Despite the futile promises by the candidates for the presidential seats on the improvement of transport and infrastructure, the president has no power of passing any legislation. The stated power mainly lies in the Senate and the House of representative. The Americans are involved in the election of their representatives and senators. There are some of the consideration which voting patterns of the members of the Congress (Moteff, 315). These include; the party views, constituents' opinions as well as the personal views. In the nature of the democratic discourse, the gridlock can occur in case the branch of Congress in the legislation and different political parties mainly lead the president's executive branch.

The two houses in the Congress have their respective representatives. The representation in the House of Senate involves two senators per state regardless of the population. On the other hand, the House of representatives has a number of representatives which is based on the population. The members of the House of Representatives mainly have two years as their term length and they are depicted as more responsive to the concerns of their constituents as opposed to the senators. In the Senate, the debate procedures are less formalized in comparison to those of the House of Representatives composed of about 435 members (Moteff, 324). A house can improve the representatives' sensitivity to the concerns of their constituents than senators and consequently, may not form coalitions which are in support of the legislation.

The United States is a government of enumerated power. The powers for the Congress are mainly enumerated in several parts of the US constitution. These include taxing power, spending power and the property clause power. The Congress has been given the power to lay and collect taxes, imports, duties and exercises, to pay the debts and also provide for the common defence and the general welfare of the united states (Stewart, 287). Besides, the constitution also gives Congress the crucial role in the national defiance, including the power of raising and maintaining the armed forces, declaring war and also making military rules. Also, it has the power of establishing post roads and post offices issue of the patents as well as copyrights establishes the courts which are inferior to the Supreme Court and fixing of the weights standards and measures.

There are some of the diversity issues depicted within Congress. Despite the allegations that diversity is only advantageous to the process of democracy, the critics have had a confusion of whether the increased diversity significantly improves the responsiveness of the government as well as the accountability beyond the constituency influence and competition (Stewart, 390). The infrastructure theory explains why and also how the minority of the legislators have kept the interest of the minority on the agenda of Congress. Utilizing information on congressional hearings hung on social equality and social welfare from 1951 to 2004, the creators find that regardless of the decay of national consideration regarding social liberties and social welfare issues, as a rule, expanded assorted variety in the House and to a lesser degree in the Senate is liable for keeping minority interests on the congressional plan (Stewart, 391). All these have an impact on how the issues are addressed on both the local and state or federal level.

Committees play a vital role in the legislative process. The committees in the Senate mainly keep monitoring on the ongoing governmental operations, identification of the issues for the statutory review gathering and evaluation of the information and also recommending the courses of action to the Senate. In every two-year Congress, the senate committees have thousands of bills as well as resolutions referred to them. In the management of the volume and complexity, the Senate separates its work between standing boards of trustees, uncommon or select advisory groups, and joint panels. These boards of trustees are additionally partitioned into subcommittees. Of the considerable number of measures sent to boards of trustees, just a little rate are considered (Latham, 386).

Congressional Representation

Money plays a crucial role in congressional election. It turns out that there are two main factors in congressional elections on the individual vote. The house districts have an overwhelming majority in partisanship; party voting alone reveals the outcome of most of the house elections. Spending is also essential to some other small factors, including the economic situation and presidential approval. Besides the usual spending during campaigns by the individual candidates, the outside groups usually spend millions of dollars in a bid to influence the congressional elections. Therefore, the election campaigns are seen to be expensive in the US since most of the candidates in Congress mainly concentrate most of their spending in the advertisements on Television. The expansion in spending is to a great extent because of a Supreme Court deciding in January that lifted limitations on enterprises and worker's guilds from attempting to impact races through TV promoting. Government crusade restrains on cash gave straightforwardly to congressional up-and-comers stay as a result.

In the infrastructural development in the United States, money has been used mainly for the economic growth in the public sphere. With President Donald Trump and some of the members of the Congress, infrastructure has received renewed interest among the people. The annual investment on the infrastructure by the federal, state and the local governments peaked in the 1930s at about 4.2% of GDP and since has fallen to about 1.5% of GDP recently (Rosenbloom, 79). Always, the state and the local government consistently spends more on the development of the infrastructure as compared to the federal government. However, there are some of the funds which have always been transferred by the federal government annually to the state as well as the local government, mainly for capital projects where the infrastructure is included. "It is common to limit analysis of infrastructure investments to nondefense investments; national defence investments generally do not fit the definition of infrastructure because they are not available to the public to assist in the production of goods and services" (Rosenbloom, 89).

There have been most of the "policy champions" who have taken an interest in the issue of infrastructure in the United States. In 2018, Trump had issued an executive order to encourage the buying of the public infrastructures construction materials which are made within the US, especially those materials that needed funding by the federal government. This was as a result of his 2017 slogan of "Buy American, Hire American". The slogan strictly restricted the act of hiring workers from foreign countries which tightened the standards for the federal acquisition. Also, the chairman of the House of transportation and infrastructure committee DeFazio had stated that the US needed spending of at least $2 trillion on its infrastructure, including 140,000 bridges (Rosenbloom, 87). By then, most of the infrastructures in the states required renovation, and therefore the funds would have been used for the purpose. Bauer, on the other hand, recognized the formidable challenges of getting any package in the infrastructure through Congress. He claimed that the biggest obstacle was the addressing of the shortfalls in the Highway Trust Fund.

Interactions Between the Congress and the President

The US Congress' interaction with the president and the Supreme Court has the role of the legislative body. However, the constitution demonstrates that the three branches of the government with the use of checks and balances could limit the power of every branch (Latham, 389). In this case, it facilitates the knowledge and understanding of how Congress interacts with the Supreme Court and the presidency. The congress' influence on the presidency has always varied from one period to another with the degree of power relying on the political leadership by the president, administration of the Congress or the boldness of the initiative by the president and other members of the Congress.

In some of the cases, the presidential authority is overseen/checked by the president. The expansion of the powers of the president is only part of the story since the commitment of the constitution for the separation of powers is directly dependent on the executive as well as the legislative branches balance. The powers of the president which had been expanded have a close relation to the powers by the Congress. Any expansion with the powers of the Congress has always kept pace with the presidential powers (Howell, 173). Two significant changes since the founding have worked to the advantage of the Congress in its battles with the presidency. To begin with is that, the Supreme Court has recognized the non-textual power for the investigation and also overseeing of the executive branch. This congress power is more significant and been effective uncovering the executive malfeasance of the branch. The oversight authority of the Congress is not self-executing, and they can be frustrated by a combative president.

Congress and the president have close cooperation with regards to the infrastructural development. The infrastructure policy of President Donald Trump is one of the parts that he had always emphasized to focus on. He sees that an extension of his set career as a developer in real estate, is through modernization of the infrastructure in America. This is what he makes as a concrete item to add to his legacy as the US president. In his campaig...