To what extent would the United States government function differently if we did not have checks and balances?

Question

To what extent would the United States government function differently if we did not have checks and balances? Address the impact of this on all three branches of government.

Answer 1

well, i guess there would only really be one branch of government then, cause the other two would even more useless than they already are. there would be things like badly planned wars in other countries and a general erosion of civil rights and environmental laws.

Answer 2

Every Presidency until the present one would have operated as Bush's reign has.
Checks and balances are designed to keep the USA from having a Prez who signs his own ideas into law (IE Iraqi war) w/out the benefit of Congressional approval. Congress looked the other way and the American citizenry pretended nothing was happening. When all politicos are for sale, anything can and does happen. It will be interesting (and sad) to see where America's politics are in the next 50 years.
Good luck.

Answer 3

Read the doctrine of the Unitary Executive.

The whole point of the checks and balances system is to prevent any one branch from abusing its power. Sadly, that isn't working right now because at least two of the branches are ignoring the others.

Answer 4

Isn't that the problem,
No one in congress was paying attention while the village idiot took us to war in Iraq
No one in congress made the six mile journey to Walter Reed Hospital to see if the wounded were being cared for.
There are no checks and balances as long as the two major parties are all one aistocracy

Answer 5

you could have particularly some nasty opposition for each branch to develop into extra effectual than the others. consistent combating, call calling, lower back biting, corruption or maybe outright mendacity. Little interest could be left over for the persons of this united states of america.

Answer 6

Any government that did not have a system of checks and balances would slowly shift to totalitarianism.