What will be the legacy of Barack Obama that Americans limit presidential powers?

Answer 1

It is difficult to say at this point, since President Obama's term has not been completed. But it should be noted that presidential power has expanded dramatically over the past several decades. President Reagan expanded it, as did President Clinton and President Bush, and President Obama has continued that trend to some degree. It should also be noted that the complaints about expansion of presidential power are not new: if you read newspapers from the 1930s, the same complaints were leveled by critics of President Roosevelt. In fact, critics of President Lincoln accused him of it too.

Part of the problem has to do with how dysfunctional the congress is. In eras when congress is bogged down in partisan bickering or when congress lets the president do whatever he wishes (many people who oppose a strong chief executive now were fine about it when President Bush was in office, for example), the power of the president expands. And once it has expanded, it's difficult to reverse that trend, nor does the next president want to give back the power the previous president had.