Dems Junkets on the taxpayer dime?

[TheMercenary]

Pelosi does not make policy for international relations with any country. So tell me again why she went?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Pelosi does not make policy for international relations with any country. So tell me again why she went?

The US State Department has a report on its website to explain the role of Congressional oversight to foreign officials who might understand the US system of government.

But clearly, Merc, you need a lesson on the US system of government and the role of Congressional oversight as well.

Congressional oversight of policy implementation and administration has occurred throughout the history of the United States government under the Constitution. Oversight — the review, monitoring, and supervision of operations and activities —takes a variety of forms and utilizes various techniques...

Congressional oversight refers to the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation. Congress exercises this power largely through its standing committee system. However, oversight, which dates to the earliest days of the Republic, also occurs in a wide variety of congressional activities and contexts. These include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff.

Congress’s oversight authority derives from its “implied” powers in the Constitution, public laws, and House and Senate rules. It is an integral part of the American system of checks and balances....

The philosophical underpinning for oversight is the Constitution’s system of checks and balances among the legislature, executive, and judiciary. James Madison, known as the “Father of the Constitution,” described the system in Federalist No. 51 as establishing “subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner that each may be a check on the other.”

Oversight, as an outgrowth of this principle, ideally serves a number of overlapping objectives and purposes:
* improve the efficiency, economy, and effectiveness of governmental operations;
* evaluate programs and performance;
* detect and prevent poor administration, waste, abuse, arbitrary and capricious behavior, or illegal and unconstitutional conduct;
* protect civil liberties and constitutional rights;
* inform the general public and ensure that executive policies reflect the public interest;
* gather information to develop new legislative proposals or to amend existing statutes;
* ensure administrative compliance with legislative intent; and
* prevent executive encroachment on legislative authority and prerogatives.

In sum, oversight is a way for Congress to check on, and check, the executive.

http://fpc.state.gov/59730.htm

Don't worry...there wont be test.