The Disadvantages of a Presidential System
With any system of government, there will be criticisms, but with the United States’ Presidential System the cons are not usually weighed in the eyes of Americans. I believe that this is a mistake. The Presidential System is a representative government, meaning that the power and decisions of the state lies in the people. However, it does not seem that the people are always represented as well as they could be. In a presidential system elections are costly, laws are difficult to pass, presidents often turn towards authoritarianism, and it is common to have a lack of accountability.
In the Presidential System, there is a practice called the separation of power, or trias politica, that divides the power of the government into three branches of government: executive, judiciary, and legislative. These branches keep the others from becoming supreme with a system of checks and balances. The president, who belongs to the executive branch, and the congress, which belong in the legislative branch, is often affiliated with different political parties, making it difficult to pass any laws (Advantages of a Parliamentary System). Many people would see this as a positive thing, but I, however, do not. Often, stalemates occur, and neither party wins (Advantages of a Parliamentary System). In the fast-paced and chaotic world that we live in, laws need to be passed to make the people happy. The opinions of the public are always progressing, and with the president able to veto a bill after it is passed in congress and the congress able to overturn his veto only with a majority vote, often drags on a process that, in a parliamentary system, could be done in a matter of three weeks.
In fact, most elections in a parliamentary system of government only last three weeks. Fortunately for the people under parliamentary rule, elections don’t cost nearly as much time or money that is spent every four years on a president in a presidential...