ABSTRACT
Edwin S. Corwin once described the sharing of foreign policy powers between the president and the Congress in the Constitution as "an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy." 1 In recent years a new element in this ongoing struggle has emerged as the Congress has shifted from the traditional, free-standing, foreign assistance authorization and appropriation bills to continuing resolutions and supplemental appropriations as its principal legislative mechanism for affecting foreign affairs. This shift has enhanced the power of the Appropriations Committees of the Congress, which manage this legislation, at the expense of the foreign affairs committees, which do not. In addition, it has affected the overall role that the Congress plays relative to the executive in the formulation of foreign policy:
by forcing tougher trade-offs with domestic programs;
by forcing the foreign policy leaders in the executive branch to be more cognizant of U.S. domestic political requirements;
205by reinforcing the tendency that Congress already had to micromanipulate rather than oversee broad policy outlines for U.S. foreign policy.
