There are multiple types of decisions that the attorney-in-fact can be given the power to make, including the power to: 1  Make financial decisions. 2  Make gifts of money. 3  Make health care decisions, including the ability to consent to giving, withholding, or stopping medical treatments, services, or diagnostic procedures.
1 Changes in the second half of the nineteenth century dramatically increased the governmentâs regulatory power. 2  The federal civil service, created by the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act, ensured that bureaucrats would be hired on the basis of merit rather than political connections.
The Pendleton Federal Civil Service Act of 1883 provided the initial basis for the adoption of the merit system in the recruitment of federal officials, and by the late 20th century merit systems had almost completely replaced the spoils system at the federal, state, and city levels of government.