While the President can refuse to sign, he will often have to give in and sign eventually. The government would shut down and the blame would be put on him. Additionally, Congress can extend the budget so that it continues as it was for a period of time. Look what happened now. Trump did not get the budget that he wanted for the wall because Congress would not budge. While he got some money for the wall, it was not what he wanted.

Congress has a very important power. The ability to impeach the President! If the President gets too powerful or out-of-control, the House can hold trials, investigate, and impeach. If there is proof that the President broke the law, there is no executive privilege to protect him. This is the ULTIMATE check on the President, and while it is rare, it is not impossible for a President to be impeached by Congress.

Your last point didn't exactly prove your point. Any executive order the current President does can just be undone by the next President, so those orders aren't exactly long-lasting. On top of that, Congress can just pass a law that invalidates the order. How is that executive order powerful??

While you are correct, Congress can override a presidential veto with a majority vote from both chambers.

I completely agree. The framers considered having two or even four presidents, but decided that they could only have one. The government is designed so that when things go wrong, the person to blame is the President. He always has to take responsibility for his actions. Additionally, the President is much more recognizable than the average Congressman. Almost every American knows who Donald Trump is, but how many people know Peter Welch, a representative of Vermont? There is much more pressure on the President to behave responsibly and in favor of the people than there is pressure on Congressmen and Senators.

One big power that Congress has over the President and over other parts of government is the power of the purse. Congress can give funding to agencies, but they can also withhold funding from agencies and states to get them to do Congress' bidding. A good example is when Congress raised the drinking age to 21. Any state who did not raise their drinking age to meet Congress' requirement had a portion their funding for highways withheld. Eventually, every state had to submit to raising their drinking age because they could not afford to lose funding. Since Congress decides how the money is spent, that prevents the President from being able to do what he wants as well. Most recently, President Trump has been unable to receive sufficient funding for the wall he wants to build because Congress has refused to give him the budget he wants. The power of the purse is one of Congress' most important powers, and with it, the legislative branch has the upper hand on the executive.

The government may be quicker with an executive branch, but this branch will become too powerful. Since the executive is also the Commander in Chief, he can dictate his standing armies to do as he pleases. And additionally, you say that in this form of government there will be less gridlock, but if anything it will create MORE gridlock. In such a large government, it will be impossible to pass any controversial laws. The "constant clashing of opinions and representatives... will [slow] the operations of government" (pg 313). Nothing will ever get done if we are unable to agree about anything.

Your point is exactly why we should stick to smaller republics. The executive cannot understand the interests of the people, so we should be run by individual state governments instead of a central government. In a small state government, the representative will better understand his constituents since they will be people in his community. When a representative has to stand for an entire state, he will lose that connection.

A large republic will never work. In a small republic, the reason why the people listen to the government is because they ARE the government. They create the laws, so they follow those laws. In a large republic, the executive branch will be too disconnected from the people. The citizens will no longer have a drive to follow the laws since they did not create and enforce them, and the executive will be able to do whatever he wants since us citizens won't be close enough to know what he is doing and stop him. (pg 314-315) And if we don't like the laws being placed, the standing armies will be sent against us. How is this a proper way to run government? Just let us have small republics in our states! That way, we will properly be in control of our own laws and representatives.

Agreed! These Federalists claim that they want to make our government balanced, but they are endangering our states' power. This "necessary and proper" clause is a big red flag... where is the limit to something that can be necessary and proper? The federal government could deem the destruction of state governments as necessary and proper! And without a strong state government, we could not dispute it. The Constitution already set it up so that the federal government has all the good powers. (pg 309) They just gave us the scraps! Ridiculous.