Presidential politics 169responsibility of seeing that presidential policy is carried through. However,
the practical significance of the Office must be assessed within the political
and administrative context in which it operates. It is unlikely ever to have
the degree of control over executive departments that the British Treasury
wields, simply because the American administrative machine is much more
loosely knit. Furthermore, the power of its head ultimately depends upon
the extent to which the president is prepared actively to give support to the
Director. If a president is determined to use the Office as an instrument of
policy, rather than as a mere accounting device, and makes it clear that the
Director’s point of view will be upheld, then control over the estimates can
become a reality. But with the best will in the world a president inevitably
faces the difficulty that there is only a limited amount of time and effort that
can be devoted to these matters and for the Director it becomes a political
problem of how far, and how often, an appeal can be made for direct presi-
dential support in conflicts with departments. Finally, of course, the Office
has to take account of Congress, and of the influence wielded by chairmen of
committees over the bureaus and agencies of the government and on their
behalf. The Director and the president too must live with the knowledge
that Congress might reverse their decisions. They do not, therefore, have the
same authority in the settlement of disputes within the administration that
a Chancellor of the Exchequer has in the British administrative machine, for
the latter is virtually certain that Parliament will pass the estimates in the
form that is proposed.
The Council of Economic Advisers
The function of the Office of Management and Budget is to control and co-
ordinate the activities of government through the supervision of departmen-
tal expenditures, but modern governments must concern themselves with
economic policy in a wider context. They must attempt, at whatever level of
sophistication, to control the general direction and pace of economic devel-
opment, to control inflation, prevent slumps, and sustain economic growth.
The broad acceptance of this philosophy by Congress in the immediate post-
war period led to the passage of the Employment Act of 1946, which set up
the Council of Economic Advisers. The function of the Council is to advise
the president on future economic trends, to develop and recommend to him
policies that will ‘maintain employment, production, and purchasing power’,
to conduct studies of the economy and to recommend policies that will con-
tribute to this aim. The Council, consisting of a chairman and two other
members, together with its staff, has the task of preparing for the president
an Annual Economic Report for presentation to the Congress, setting out the
administration’s view of what is likely to happen during the year in the eco-
nomic sphere, and making recommendations on economic policy. Even more
perhaps than other parts of the presidential entourage, the Council must be
seen essentially as an advisory body. It has been described as the ‘economic
conscience’ of the administration, serving as a counterweight to the Treasury