Presidential Transition in The United States
In the United States, a presidential election is held every four years. While transitions between presidents are peaceful, they are highly complicated and expensive. After the President-elect is sworn in, one of his primary obligations is to build his administration. The most publicized of these duties is appointing members of his Cabinet (Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Defense, et cetera). In total, the President makes 6,000 to 9,000 appointments, although he has the right to appoint as many as 700,000 to the federal bureaucracy. Sometimes, a President will allow appointments from the previous administration to maintain their position. "Normally these appointments include: Cabinet Officers and heads of other executive branch agencies; Under Secretaries; Assistant Secretaries; Directors of Bureaus and Services; and Chairpersons and Members of Boards, Commissions, and Committees. Theses appointments are often authorized by specific provisions of law or approved by the Senate. "
Until 1963, the President-elect paid for his own smooth transition. In 1963, Congress passed the Presidential Transition Act in which allocates up to $900,000.
There are three different types of positions that the President can delegate.
- PA - Presidential appoint officials unilaterally.
- PAS - President has the ability to appoint officials with the advice and assent of the Senate.
- SES- Non-career Senior Executive Service- are appointed "based on their responsibility for advocating public policy.
-
- confidential character. (Sometimes referred to as 'Schedule C' position)
- The average age of a SES is 54 and serves for 23 years.
There are different pay levels for Executive employees, ranging from $114,500 to $ 157,000. Civilian Payroll for Executive Agencies is nearly 12 million a year. Executive Direct Compensation was $129,923 million and personal benefits were $47,596 million. (As of September 2006)
Read more about this topic: Presidency
Famous quotes containing the words united states, presidential, transition, united and/or states:
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The Republican Vice Presidential Candidate ... asks you to place him a heartbeat from the Presidency.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“A transition from an author’s books to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples, and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendor, grandeur, and magnificence; but, when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help. . . . No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)