What Are the Executive Powers of the President of the United States?

In one of my recent postings, I mentioned a book entitled Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in Modern Democracies. After rereading that informative review of the political history of the first half of the 20^th Century I am convinced that, according to laws currently in force, there isn't much separating democracy and dictatorship.

Do the following two paragraphs seem a little too familiar?

"This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly ... a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return ... the rulers of the exchange ... have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence ... Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion ... Stripped of the lure of profit ... they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers ...

"I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis . . . broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."

Before I reveal where I came across the above quote, let's consider the power currently granted to the president.

The President of the United States, in his capacity as the head of the executive branch, has the constitutional authority to declare a state of emergency. However, in the wake of the abuses of power during the Vietnam Era, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651) which limits the president's ability to declare an emergency by requiring that it automatically expire in two years unless specifically extended yearly. This act also requires that a president must specify, in advance and in specific, which provisions of federal law will be invoked in the course of such emergency, and also that Congress may override such declarations of emergency.