How does the Congress check the acts of the President?

Congress serves as a check on the activities of the bureaucracy. Congress oversees the bureaucracy in a number of ways.

1) Duplication - Congress rarely gives any one job to a single agency. For example, drug trafficking is the task of the Customs Services, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, and the Defense Department. Although this spreading out of the responsibility often leads to contradictions among agencies and sometimes inhibits the responsiveness of government, it also keeps any one agency from becoming all powerful.

2) Authorization - No agency may spend money unless it has first been authorized by Congress. Authorization legislation originates in a legislative committee, and states the maximum amount of money that an agency may spend on a given program. Furthermore, even if funds have been authorized, Congress must also appropriate the money. An appropriation is money formally set aside for a specific use, and it usually is less than the amount authorized. The Appropriations Committees in both houses of Congress must divide all available money among the agencies, and almost always they cut agency budgets from the levels authorized.

3) Hearings - Congressional committees may hold hearings as part of their oversight responsibilities. Agency abuses may be questioned publicly, although the committee holding the hearings typically has the oversight responsibility, so a weak agency may reflect weak oversight.

4) Rewriting legislation - If they wish to restrict the power of an agency, Congress may rewrite legislation or make it more detailed. Every statute is filled with instructions to its administrators, the more detailed the instructions, the better able Congress is to restrict the agency's power. Still, an agency usually finds a way to influence the policy, no matter how detailed the orders of Congress.