2
Assignments
Read The four PowerPoints Attached and answer the question below:
Explain, what concerns might arise when Congress delegates decision-making authority to unelected leaders, sometimes called the fourth branch of government?
No References page needed!
Please answer in One Full Pages!
Chapter
1
6
Domestic Policy
PL-102-OL1
Instructor Walter Pearn
1
Chapter Objectives
Explain the concept of public policy.
Discuss examples of public policy in action.
Describe the different types of goods in a society.
Identify key public policy domains in the United States.
Compare the different forms of policy and the way they transfer goods within a society.
Identify the key domestic arenas of public policy.
Describe the major social safety net programs.
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Chapter Objectives
List the key agencies responsible for promoting and regulating U.S. business and industry.
Identify types of policymakers in different issue areas.
Describe the public policy process.
Discuss economic theories that shape U.S. economic policy.
Explain how the government uses fiscal policy tools to maintain a healthy economy.
Analyze the taxing and spending decisions made by Congress and the president.
Discuss the role of the Federal Reserve Board in monetary policy.
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PUBLIC POLICY DEFINED
Public policy is an attempt by a government to address a public issue by instituting laws, regulations, decisions, or actions pertinent to the problem at hand.
Numerous issues can be addressed by public policy including crime, education, foreign policy, health, and social welfare.
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Examples of public policy
Minimum wage laws
Public assistance programs
Affordable Care Act.
The definition of public policy is the laws, priorities and governmental actions that reflect the attitudes and rules for the public.
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Types of Public Goods
There are four different types of goods in economics which can be classified based on excludability and rivalrousness:
Private goods
Public goods
Common resources
Club goods
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Private goods
Private Goods are products that are excludable and rival.
They have to be purchased before they can be consumed.
Thus, anyone who cannot afford private goods is excluded from their consumption.
Likewise, the consumption of private goods by an individual prevents other individuals from consuming the same goods.
Examples of private goods include ice cream, cheese, houses, cars, etc.
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Public Goods
Public goods describe products that are non-excludable and non-rival.
That means no one can be prevented from consuming them, and individuals can use them without reducing their availability to other individuals.
Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, national defense, street lighting, etc.
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Common Resources
Common resources are defined as products or resources that are non-excludable but rival.
That means virtually anyone can use them. However, if one individual consumes common resources, their availability to other individuals is reduced.
The combination of those two characteristics often results in an overuse of common resources.
Examples of common resources include freshwater, fish, timber, pasture, etc.
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Club Goods
Club goods are products that are excludable but non-rival.
Thus, individuals can be prevented from consuming them, but their consumption does not reduce their availability to other individuals.
Club goods are sometimes also referred to as artificially scarce resources.
They are often provided by natural monopolies.
Examples of club goods include cable television, cinemas, wireless internet, toll roads, etc.
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Free-market economics
believe that the market forces of supply and demand, working without any government involvement, are the most effective way for markets to operate.
One of the basic principles of free-market economics is that for just about any good that can be privatized, the most efficient means for exchange is the marketplace.
A well-functioning market will allow producers of goods to come together with consumers of goods to negotiate a trade.
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Libertarians
Some people in the United States argue that the self-monitoring and self-regulating incentives provided by the existence of private goods mean that sound public policy requires very little government action.
Libertarians, believe government almost always operates less efficiently than the private sector (the segment of the economy run for profit and not under government control), and that government actions should therefore be kept to a minimum.
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Classic Types of Policy
One policy category, known as distributive policy, tends to collect payments or resources from many but concentrates direct benefits on relatively few.
Highways are often developed through distributive policy.
Distributive policy is also common when society feels there is a social benefit to individuals obtaining private goods such as higher education that offer long-term benefits, but the upfront cost may be too high for the average citizen.
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Classic Types of Policy
Regulatory policy features the opposite arrangement, with concentrated costs and diffuse benefits.
A relatively small number of groups or individuals bear the costs of regulatory policy, but its benefits are expected to be distributed broadly across society.
As you might imagine, regulatory policy is most effective for controlling or protecting public or common resources.
Among the best-known examples are policies designed to protect public health and safety, and the environment.
These regulatory policies prevent manufacturers or businesses from maximizing their profits by excessively polluting the air or water, selling products they know to be harmful, or compromising the health of their employees during production.
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Classic Types of Policy
Redistributive policy, so named because it redistributes resources in society from one group to another.
Most redistributive policies are intended to have a sort of “Robin Hood” effect; their goal is to transfer income and wealth from one group to another such that everyone enjoys at least a minimal standard of living.
Typically, the wealthy and middle class pay into the federal tax base, which then funds need-based programs that support low-income individuals and families.
A few examples of redistributive policies are Head Start (education), Medicaid (health care), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, income support), and food programs like the Supplementary Nutritional Aid Program (SNAP).
The government also uses redistribution to incentivize specific behaviors or aid small groups of people. Pell grants to encourage college attendance and tax credits to encourage home ownership are other examples of redistribution.
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Three Major Domestic Policy Areas
Social welfare
Science, technology and Education
Business stimulus and regulation.
Social welfare programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare form a safety net for vulnerable populations.
Science, technology, and education policies have the goal of securing the United States’ competitive advantages.
Business stimulus and regulation policies must balance business’ needs for an economic edge with consumers’ need for protection from unfair or unsafe practices.
The United States spends billions of dollars on these programs.
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Types of Policy Makers
Two groups most engaged in making policy are policy advocates and policy analysts.
Policy advocates are people who feel strongly enough about something to work toward changing public policy to fix it.
Policy analysts, on the other hand, aim for impartiality.
Their role is to assess potential policies and predict their outcomes.
Although they are in theory unbiased, their findings often reflect specific political leanings.
The public policy process has four major phases: identifying the problem, setting the agenda, implementing the policy, and evaluating the results.
The process is a cycle, because the evaluation stage should feed back into the earlier stages, informing future decisions about the policy.
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Identifying the problem
First step in the public policy process is to outline the problem.
This involves not only recognizing that an issue exists, but also studying the problem and its causes in detail.
This stage involves determining how aware the public is of the issue, deciding who will participate in fixing it, and considering what means are available to accomplish a solution.
Answers to such questions often help policy makers gauge which policy changes, if any, are needed to address the identified problem.
The agenda — which problems are addressed — can be set by the public, special interest groups, or government officials, among others.
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Setting the agenda
After identifying and studying the problem, a new public policy may be formulated or developed.
This step is typically marked by discussion and debate between government officials, interest groups, and individual citizens to identify potential obstacles, to suggest alternative solutions, and to set clear goals and list the steps that need to be taken to achieve them.
This part of the process can be difficult, and often compromises will be required before the policy can be written.
Once the policy is developed, the proper authorities must agree to it; a weaker policy may be more likely to pass, where a stronger one that deals with the problem more directly might not have enough support to gain approval.
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Implementing the policy
A new policy must be put into effect, which typically requires determining which organizations or agencies will be responsible for carrying it out.
This is the third step of the public policy process, and one that can be difficult if the people who are tasked with carrying out the policy are not committed to complying with it.
During the policy development step, compromises may have been made to get the policy passed that those who are ultimately required to help carry it out do not agree with; as such, they are unlikely to enforce it effectively.
Clear communication and coordination, as well as sufficient funding, are also needed to make this step a success.
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Evaluating the results
The final stage in the public policy process, known as evaluation, is typically ongoing.
This step usually involves a study of how effective the new policy has been in addressing the original problem, which often leads to additional public policy changes.
It also includes reviewing funds and resources available to ensure that the policy can be maintained.
Historically, this step has not always been treated as very important, but policy makers are increasingly finding ways to make sure that the tools needed for evaluation are included in each step of the public policy process.
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Theories of Economic Policy
Laissez-faire roughly translates as “to leave alone,” and it means that government should not interfere in the economy.
This theory favors low taxes and free trade, and it strongly holds that the market is self-adjusting — whatever happens will be corrected over time without the help of the government.
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Theories of Economic Policy
Keynesian economic theory argues that government should manipulate the economy to reverse the periodic downturns that take place in the market.
John Maynard Keynes, an English economist argues economic depressions are due to a lack of consumer demand.
This created excess inventories of goods that forced business to cut production and lay off workers, which led to fewer consumers and even lower demand.
The solution was to increase demand by increasing government spending and cutting taxes.
This fiscal policy, as it became known, left people with more money after taxes and basic obligations to use for goods and services.
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Theories of Economic Policy
Monetarism
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Keynesian economics fell into disrepute because it did not offer a solution for dealing with unemployment and inflation at the same time.
To monetarists, inflation, unemployment, and stagnation were caused by policies that adversely affected an otherwise stable economy.
Milton Friedman, argued that the best way to create a healthy economy is to control the supply of money.
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Theories of Economic Policy
Supply-side economics
Another economic problem of the late 1970s was exploding budget deficits.
Because the budget is part of fiscal policy, not monetary policy, monetarism did not speak to this problem directly.
Another group, called supply-side economists, offered the surprising suggestion that government could raise more money by cutting taxes.
Their argument was fairly straightforward: High taxes were limiting national productivity, so lowering taxes would stimulate economic growth and eventually produce more revenue.
The Reagan administration accepted this approach, so much so that supply-side economics became Reaganomics.
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MANDATORY SPENDING
Mandatory spending is the larger, consisting of about $2.5 trillion of the projected 2017 budget, or roughly 59 percent of all federal expenditures.
The overwhelming portion of mandatory spending is earmarked for entitlement programs guaranteed to those who meet certain qualifications, usually based on age, income, or disability.
These programs, discussed above, include Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, and major income security programs such as unemployment insurance and SNAP.
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DISCRETIONARY SPENDING
Discretionary spending Congress must pass legislation to authorize money to be spent each year.
About 50 percent of the approximately $1.2 trillion set aside for discretionary spending each year pays for most of the operations of government, including employee salaries and the maintenance of federal buildings.
It also covers science and technology spending, foreign affairs initiatives, education spending, federally provided transportation costs, and many of the redistributive benefits most people in the United States have come to take for granted.
The other half of discretionary spending—and the second-largest component of the total budget—is devoted to the military. (Only Social Security is larger.) Defense spending is used to maintain the U.S. military presence at home and abroad, procure and develop new weapons, and cover the cost of any wars or other military engagements in which the United States is currently engaged.
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Debt/Deficit
Deficit—the amount by which expenditures are greater than revenues—by more than half.
However, the amount of money the U.S. government needed to borrow to pay its bills in 2016 was still in excess of $400 billion.
Debt—the amount of money the government owes its creditors—at the end of 2015, according to the Department of the Treasury.
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TAX POLICY
All governments must raise revenue in order to operate.
The most common way is by applying some sort of tax on residents (or on their behaviors) in exchange for the benefits the government provides.
As necessary as taxes are, however, they are not without potential downfalls.
First, the more money the government collects to cover its costs, the less residents are left with to spend and invest.
Second, attempts to raise revenues through taxation may alter the behavior of residents in ways that are counterproductive to the state and the broader economy.
Excessively taxing necessary and desirable behaviors like consumption (with a sales tax) or investment (with a capital gains tax) will discourage citizens from engaging in them, potentially slowing economic growth.
The goal of tax policy, then, is to determine the most effective way of meeting the nation’s revenue obligations without harming other public policy goals.
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Progressive taxes
Progressive taxes systems that increase the effective tax rate as the taxpayer’s income increases.
This policy leaves those most likely to spend their money with more money to spend.
For example, in 2015, U.S. taxpayers paid a 10 percent tax rate on the first $18,450 of income, but 15 percent on the next $56,450 (some income is excluded).
The rate continues to rise, to up to 39.6 percent on any taxable income over $464,850.
These brackets are somewhat distorted by the range of tax credits, deductions, and incentives the government offers, but the net effect is that the top income earners pay a greater portion of the overall income tax burden than do those at the lowest tax brackets.
According to the Pew Research Center, based on tax returns in 2014, 2.7 percent of filers made more than $250,000. Those 2.7 percent of filers paid 52 percent of the income tax paid.
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Regressive Tax
Supply-siders, on the other hand, prefer regressive tax systems, which lower the overall rate as individuals make more money.
This does not automatically mean the wealthy pay less than the poor, simply that the percentage of their income they pay in taxes will be lower.
Consider, for example, the use of excise taxes on specific goods or services as a source of revenue.
Sometimes called “sin taxes” because they tend to be applied to goods like alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline, excise taxes have a regressive quality, since the amount of the good purchased by the consumer, and thus the tax paid, does not increase at the same rate as income.
A person who makes $250,000 per year is likely to purchase more gasoline than a person who makes $50,000 per year.
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THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD AND INTEREST RATES
Financial panics arise when too many people, worried about the solvency of their investments, try to withdraw their money at the same time. Such panics plagued U.S. banks until 1913, when Congress enacted the Federal Reserve Act.
The act established the Federal Reserve System, also known as the Fed, as the central bank of the United States.
The Fed’s three original goals to promote were maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
All of these goals bring stability.
The Fed’s role is now broader and includes influencing monetary policy (the means by which the nation controls the size and growth of the money supply), supervising and regulating banks, and providing them with financial services like loans.
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THE END
33
Chapter 17
Foreign Policy
PL-102-OL1
Instructor Walter Pearn
Chapter Objectives
Explain what foreign policy is and how it differs from domestic policy.
Identify the objectives of U.S. foreign policy.
Describe the different types of foreign policy.
Identify the U.S. government’s main challenges in the foreign policy realm.
Describe the outputs of broadly focused U.S. foreign policy.
Describe the outputs of sharply focused U.S. foreign policy.
Analyze the role of Congress in foreign policy.
Chapter Objectives
Describe the use of shared power in U.S. foreign policymaking.
Explain why presidents lead more in foreign policy than in domestic policy.
Discuss why individual House and Senate members rarely venture into foreign policy.
List the actors who engage in foreign policy.
Explain classic schools of thought on U.S. foreign policy.
Describe contemporary schools of thought on U.S. foreign policy.
Delineate the U.S. foreign policy approach with Russia and China.
What is foreign policy?
This definition highlights some of the key topics in U.S. foreign policy, such as national goals abroad and the way the United States tries to achieve them.
Note too that we distinguish foreign policy, which is externally focused, from domestic policy, which sets strategies internal to the United States, though the two types of policies can become quite intertwined.
For example, one might talk about Latino politics as a domestic issue when considering educational policies designed to increase the number of Hispanic Americans who attend and graduate from a U.S. college or university.
However, as demonstrated in the primary debates leading up to the 2016 election, Latino politics can quickly become a foreign policy matter when considering topics such as immigration from and foreign trade with countries in Central America and South America
the objectives of U.S. foreign policy
Four main goals to foreign policy:
(1) the protection of the U.S. and its citizens.
(2) the maintenance of access to key resources and markets.
(3) the preservation of a balance of power in the world.
(4) the protection of human rights and democracy.
Goals of Foreign Policy
In an economic boycott, the United States ceases trade with another country unless or until it changes a policy to which the United States objects. Ceasing trade means U.S. goods cannot be sold in that country and its goods cannot be sold in the United States.
The second main goal of U.S. foreign policy is to ensure the nation maintains access to key resources and markets across the world. Resources include natural resources, such as oil, and economic resources, including the infusion of foreign capital investment for U.S. domestic infrastructure projects like buildings, bridges, and weapons systems.
Goals of Foreign Policy
A third main goal is the preservation of a balance of power in the world.
A balance of power means no one nation or region is much more powerful militarily than are the countries of the rest of the world.
The achievement of a perfect balance of power is probably not possible, but general stability, or predictability in the operation of governments, strong institutions, and the absence of violence within and between nations may be.
The fourth main goal of U.S. foreign policy is the protection of human rights and democracy. The payoff of stability that comes from other U.S. foreign policy goals is peace and tranquility.
The United Nations (UN)
The United Nations (UN) is perhaps the foremost international organization in the world today.
The main institutional bodies of the UN are the General Assembly and the Security Council.
The General Assembly includes all member nations and admits new members and approves the UN budget by a two-thirds majority.
The Security Council includes fifteen countries, five of which are permanent members (including the United States) and ten that are non-permanent and rotate on a five two-year-term basis.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Another cross-national organization to which the United States is tied, and that exists to forcefully represent Western allies and in turn forge the peace, is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
NATO was formed after World War II as the Cold War between East and West started to emerge.
While more militaristic in approach than the United Nations, NATO has the goal of protecting the interests of Europe and the West and the assurance of support and defense from partner nations.
However, while it is a strong military coalition, it has not sought to expand and take over other countries. Rather, the peace and stability of Europe are its main goals.
NATO initially included only Western European nations and the United States. However, since the end of the Cold War, additional countries from the East, such as Turkey, have entered into the NATO alliance.
Trade Policy
Trade policy is the way the United States interacts with other countries to ease the flow of commerce and goods and services between countries.
A country is said to be engaging in protectionism when it does not permit other countries to sell goods and services within its borders, or when it charges them very high tariffs (or import taxes) to do so.
At the other end of the spectrum is a free trade approach, in which a country allows the unfettered flow of goods and services between itself and other countries.
At times the United States has been free trade–oriented, while at other times it has been protectionist. Perhaps its most free trade–oriented move was the 1991 implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
This pact removed trade barriers and other transaction costs levied on goods moving between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
balance of trade
The balance of trade is the relationship between a country’s inflow and outflow of goods.
The United States sells many goods and services around the world, but overall it maintains a trade deficit, in which more goods and services are coming in from other countries than are going out to be sold overseas.
The current U.S. trade deficit is $37.4 billion, which means the value of what the United States imports from other countries is much larger than the value of what it exports to other countries.
This trade deficit has led some to advocate for protectionist trade policies.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the establishment and maintenance of a formal relationship between countries that governs their interactions on matters as diverse as tourism, the taxation of goods they trade, and the landing of planes on each other’s runways.
While diplomatic relations are not always rosy, when they are operating it does suggest that things are going well between the countries.
Diplomatic relations are formalized through the sharing of ambassadors.
Ambassadors are country representatives who live and maintain an office (known as an embassy) in the other country. Just as exchanging ambassadors formalizes the bilateral relationship between countries, calling them home signifies the end of the relationship.
Diplomacy tends to be the U.S. government’s first step when it tries to resolve a conflict with another country.
Public Laws
Public laws, sometimes called statutes, are policies that affect more than a single individual.
All policies enacted by Congress and the president are public laws, except for a few dozen each year.
They differ from private laws, which require some sort of action or payment by a specific individual or individuals named in the law.
Many statutes affect what the government can do in the foreign policy realm, including the National Security Act, the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, and the War Powers Resolution.
Public Laws
The National Security Act governs the way the government shares and stores information.
The Patriot Act (passed immediately after 9/11) clarifies what the government may do in collecting information about people in the name of protecting the country.
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 authorized the creation of a massive new federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security, consolidating powers that had been under the jurisdiction of several different agencies.
The War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973 by a congressional override of President Richard Nixon’s veto. The bill was Congress’s attempt to reassert itself in war-making.
Congress has the power to declare war, but it had not formally done so since Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II.
Yet the United States had entered several wars since that time, including in Korea, in Vietnam, and in focused military campaigns such as the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
The War Powers Resolution created a new series of steps to be followed by presidents in waging military conflict with other countries.
Reauthorization
All federal agencies, including those dedicated to foreign policy, face reauthorization every three to five years.
If not reauthorized, agencies lose their legal standing and the ability to spend federal funds to carry out programs.
Agencies typically are reauthorized, because they coordinate carefully with presidential and congressional staff to get their affairs in order when the time comes.
The foreign policy and defense budgets are part of the discretionary budget, or the section of the national budget that Congress vets and decides on each year.
Foreign policy leaders in the executive and legislative branches must advocate for funding from this budget, and while foreign policy budgets are usually renewed, there are enough proposed changes each year to make things interesting.
Agreements
The U.S. Constitution outlines the treaty process in Article II. The president negotiates a treaty, the Senate consents to the treaty by a two-thirds vote, and finally the president ratifies it.
Despite that constitutional clarity, today over 90 percent of the international agreements into which the United States enters are not treaties but rather executive agreements.
Executive agreements are negotiated by the president, and in the case of sole executive agreements, they are simultaneously approved by the president as well.
On the other hand, congressional-executive agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), are negotiated by the president and then approved by a simple majority of the House and Senate (rather than a two-thirds vote in the Senate as is the case for a treaty).
Appointments
The last broad type of foreign policy output consists of the foreign policy appointments made when a new president takes office.
Typically, when the party in the White House changes, more new appointments are made than when the party does not change, because the incoming president wants to put in place people who share his or her agenda.
Most foreign policy–related appointments, such as secretary of state and the various undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, as well as all ambassadors, must be confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate.
Presidents seek to nominate people who know the area to which they’re being appointed and who will be loyal to the president rather than to the bureaucracy in which they might work.
Isolationists might seek to pull back from foreign policy involvement around the globe, while internationalists would go in the other direction, toward more involvement and toward acting in conjunction with other countries.
SHARPLY FOCUSED FOREIGN POLICY OUTPUTS
These sharply focused foreign policy outputs tend to be exclusively the province of the president, including the:
Deployment of troops and/or intelligence agents in a crisis
Executive summits between the president and other heads of state on targeted matters of foreign policy
Presidential use of military force
Emergency funding measures to deal with foreign policy crises.
Emergency spending does involve Congress through its power of the purse, but Congress tends to give presidents what they need to deal with emergencies.
The framers were consistent in wanting checks and balances sprinkled throughout the Constitution, including in the area of foreign policy and war powers. Hence, Congress has several roles, as discussed at points throughout this chapter.
FOREIGN POLICY AND SHARED POWER
While presidents are more empowered by the Constitution in foreign than in domestic policy, they nonetheless must seek approval from Congress on a variety of matters; chief among these is the basic budgetary authority needed to run foreign policy programs.
Indeed, most if not all of the foreign policy instruments described earlier in this chapter require interbranch approval to go into effect.
The United States is a separation-of-powers political system with authority divided among executive and legislative branches, including in the foreign policy realm.
Roles of the President and Congress in Conducting Foreign Policy
Policy Output Presidential Role Congressional Role
Public laws Proposes, signs into law Proposes, approves for passage
Agency reauthorizations Proposes, signs into law Approves for passage
Foreign policy budget Proposes, signs into law Authorizes/appropriates for passage
Treaties Negotiates, ratifies Senate consents to treaty (two-thirds)
Sole executive agreements Negotiates, approves None (unless funding is required)
Congressional-executive agreements Negotiates Approves by majority vote
Declaration of war Proposes Approves by majority vote
Military use of force Carries out operations at will (sixty days) Approves for operations beyond sixty days
Presidential appointments Nominates candidates Senate approves by majority vote
THE TWO PRESIDENCIES THESIS
The Constitution names the president as the commander-in-chief of the military, the nominating authority for executive officials and ambassadors, and the initial negotiator of foreign agreements and treaties.
The president is the agenda-setter for foreign policy and may move unilaterally in some instances.
Beyond the Constitution, presidents were also gradually given more authority to enter into international agreements without Senate consent by using the executive agreement.
Given all these powers, we have good reason to expect presidents to have more influence and be more successful in foreign than in domestic policy.
THE TWO PRESIDENCIES THESIS
A second reason for the stronger foreign policy presidency has to do with the informal aspects of power.
In some eras, Congress will be more willing to allow the president to be a clear leader and speak for the country.
For instance, the Cold War between the Eastern bloc countries (led by the Soviet Union) and the West (led by the United States and Western European allies) prompted many to want a single actor to speak for the United States. A willing Congress allowed the president to take the lead because of urgent circumstances
THE PERSPECTIVE OF HOUSE AND SENATE MEMBERS
Congress is a bicameral legislative institution with 100 senators serving in the Senate and 435 representatives serving in the House.
Domestic policy matters resonate more strongly with the voters at home:
A sluggish economy
Increasing health care costs
Crime
Foreign policy is not at the top of many voters’ minds. In the end, legislators must be responsive to constituents in order to be good representatives and to achieve reelection.
THE PERSPECTIVE OF HOUSE AND SENATE MEMBERS
First, congressional party leaders in the majority and minority parties speak on behalf of their institution and their party on all types of issues, including foreign policy.
Some House and Senate members ask to serve on the foreign policy committees, such as the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the two defense committees.
These members might have military bases within their districts or states and hence have a constituency reason for being interested in foreign policy.
Legislators might also simply have a personal interest in foreign policy matters that drives their engagement in the issue.
Finally, they may have ambitions to move into an executive branch position that deals with foreign policy matters, such as secretary of state or defense, CIA director, or even president.
THE MANY ACTORS IN FOREIGN POLICY
The national security advisor heads the president’s National Security Council, a group of senior-level staff from multiple foreign policy agencies and is generally the president’s top foreign policy advisor. Also reporting to the president in the White House is:
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Director of National Intelligence
The Joint Chiefs of Staff consist of six members, one each from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, plus a chair and vice chair. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the president’s top uniformed military officer.
The secretary of defense is head of the entire Department of Defense but is a nonmilitary civilian.
The U.S. trade representative develops and directs the country’s international trade agenda.
Finally, within the Executive Office of the President, another important foreign policy official is the director of the president’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB director develops the president’s yearly budget proposal, including funding for the foreign policy agencies and foreign aid.
THE MANY ACTORS IN FOREIGN POLICY
In addition to those who work directly in the White House or Executive Office of the President, several important officials work in the broader executive branch and report to the president in the area of foreign policy.
Secretary of state is the nation’s chief diplomat
Secretary of defense
Secretary of homeland security
THE MANY ACTORS IN FOREIGN POLICY
The final group of official key actors in foreign policy are in the U.S. Congress.
The Speaker of the House
The House minority leader
The Senate majority
The Senate minority leader
Are often given updates on foreign policy matters by the president or the president’s staff.
They are also consulted when the president needs foreign policy support or funding.
However, the experts in Congress who are most often called on for their views are the committee chairs and the highest-ranking minority members of the relevant House and Senate committees.
In the House, that means the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Armed Services. In the Senate, the relevant committees are the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Armed Services Committee. These committees hold regular hearings on key foreign policy topics, consider budget authorizations, and debate the future of U.S. foreign policy.
CLASSIC APPROACHES
Isolationism—whereby a country stays out of foreign entanglements and keeps to itself—was a popular stance in U.S. foreign policy.
Liberal internationalism advocates a foreign policy approach in which the United States becomes proactively engaged in world affairs. Its adherents assume that liberal democracies must take the lead in creating a peaceful world by cooperating as a community of nations and creating effective world structures such as the United Nations.
MORE RECENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTS
Containment was the U.S. foreign policy goal of limiting the spread of communism.
Neoconservatives believe that rather than exercising restraint and always using international organizations as the path to international outcomes, the United States should aggressively use its might to promote its values and ideals around the world. The aggressive use (or threat) of hard power is the core value of neoconservatism.
Neo-isolationism, like earlier isolationism, advocates keeping free of foreign entanglements. Yet no advanced industrial democracy completely separates itself from the rest of the world.
Selective engagement—retaining a strong military presence and remaining engaged across the world through alliances and formal installations—is used to protect the national security interests of the United States. However, this strategy also seeks to avoid being the world’s policeman.
THE END
Chapter 15
Bureaucracy
PL-102-OL1
Instructor Walter Pearn
Chapter Objectives
Define bureaucracy and bureaucrat
Describe the evolution and growth of public administration in the United States
Identify the reasons people undertake civil service
Explain how the creation of the Civil Service Commission transformed the spoils system of the nineteenth century into a merit-based system of civil service
Understand how carefully regulated hiring and pay practices helps to maintain a merit-based civil service
Chapter Objectives
Explain the three different models’ sociologists and others use to understand bureaucracies
Identify the different types of federal bureaucracies and their functional differences
Explain the way Congress, the president, bureaucrats, and citizens provide meaningful oversight over the bureaucracies
Identify the ways in which privatization has made bureaucracies both more and less efficient
Bureaucracy defined
is an administrative group of nonelected officials charged with carrying out functions connected to a series of policies and programs.
In the United States, the bureaucracy began as a very small collection of individuals. Over time, however, it grew to be a major force in political affairs. Indeed, it grew so large that politicians in modern times have ridiculed it to great political advantage.
Bureaucrats or Civil servants
Are individuals who work in the bureaucracy, fill necessary and even instrumental roles in every area of government: from high-level positions in foreign affairs and intelligence collection agencies to clerks and staff in the smallest regulatory agencies.
They are hired, or sometimes appointed, for their expertise in carrying out the functions and programs of the government.
WHAT DOES A BUREAUCRACY DO?
Modern society relies on the effective functioning of government to provide public goods, enhance quality of life, and stimulate economic growth.
The activities by which government achieves these functions include—but are not limited to—taxation, homeland security, immigration, foreign affairs, and education.
The more society grows and the need for government services expands, the more challenging bureaucratic management and public administration becomes.
Public administration is both the implementation of public policy in government bureaucracies and the academic study that prepares civil servants for work in those organizations.
WHAT DOES A BUREAUCRACY DO?
The classic version of a bureaucracy is hierarchical and can be described by an organizational chart that outlines the separation of tasks and worker specialization while also establishing a clear unity of command by assigning each employee to only one boss.
Given this definition, bureaucracy is not unique to government but is also found in the private and nonprofit sectors.
Almost all organizations are bureaucratic regardless of their scope and size; although public and private organizations differ in some important ways.
For example, while private organizations are responsible to a superior authority such as an owner, board of directors, or shareholders, federal governmental organizations answer equally to the president, Congress, the courts, and ultimately the public.
The underlying goals of private and public organizations also differ. While private organizations seek to survive by controlling costs, increasing market share, and realizing a profit, public organizations find it more difficult to measure the elusive goal of operating with efficiency and effectiveness.
THE ORIGINS OF THE U.S. BUREAUCRACY
In the early U.S. republic, the bureaucracy was quite small. This is understandable since the American Revolution was largely a revolt against executive power and the British imperial administrative order.
Nevertheless, while neither the word “bureaucracy” nor its synonyms appear in the text of the Constitution, the document does establish a few broad channels through which the emerging government could develop the necessary bureaucratic administration.
For example, Article II, Section 2, provides the president the power to appoint officers and department heads.
In the following section, the president is further empowered to see that the laws are “faithfully executed.” More specifically, Article I, Section 8, empowers Congress to establish a post office, build roads, regulate commerce, coin money, and regulate the value of money
THE ORIGINS OF THE U.S. BUREAUCRACY
Under President George Washington, the bureaucracy remained small enough to accomplish only the necessary tasks at hand.
Washington’s tenure saw the creation of the Department of State to oversee international issues, the Department of the Treasury to control coinage, and the Department of War to administer the armed forces.
The employees within these three departments, in addition to the growing postal service, constituted the major portion of the federal bureaucracy for the first three decades of the republic. Two developments, however, contributed to the growth of the bureaucracy well beyond these humble beginnings.
THE ORIGINS OF THE U.S. BUREAUCRACY
This was the beginning of the spoils system, in which political appointments were transformed into political patronage doled out by the president on the basis of party loyalty.
Political patronage is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their political support.
The term “spoils” here refers to paid positions in the U.S. government.
As the saying goes, “to the victor,” in this case the incoming president, “go the spoils.” It was assumed that government would work far more efficiently if the key federal posts were occupied by those already supportive of the president and his policies.
THE FALL OF POLITICAL PATRONAGE
Clients who wanted positions in the civil service pledged their political loyalty to a particular patron who then provided them with their desired positions.
These arrangements directed the power and resources of government toward perpetuating the reward system.
They replaced the system that early presidents like Thomas Jefferson had fostered, in which the country’s intellectual and economic elite rose to the highest levels of the federal bureaucracy based on their relative merit.
Criticism of the spoils system grew, especially in the mid-1870s, after numerous scandals rocked the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant.
THE FALL OF POLITICAL PATRONAGE
As the negative aspects of political patronage continued to infect bureaucracy in the late nineteenth century, calls for civil service reform grew louder.
Those supporting the patronage system held that their positions were well earned; those who condemned it argued that federal legislation was needed to ensure jobs were awarded on the basis of merit.
Eventually, after President James Garfield had been assassinated by a disappointed office seeker, Congress responded to cries for reform with the Pendleton Act, also called the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
The act established the Civil Service Commission, a centralized agency charged with ensuring that the federal government’s selection, retention, and promotion practices were based on open, competitive examinations in a merit system.
THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
The Pendleton Act of 1883 was not merely an important piece of reform legislation; it also established the foundations for the merit-based system that emerged in the decades that followed.
It accomplished this through a number of important changes, although three elements stand out as especially significant.
First, the law attempted to reduce the impact of politics on the civil service sector by making it illegal to fire or otherwise punish government workers for strictly political reasons.
Second, the law raised the qualifications for employment in civil service positions by requiring applicants to pass exams designed to test their competence in a number of important skill and knowledge areas.
Third, it allowed for the creation of the United States Civil Service Commission (CSC), which was charged with enforcing the elements of the law.
THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
The CSC, as created by the Pendleton Act, was to be made up of three commissioners, only two of whom could be from the same political party.
Responsible of developing and applying the competitive examinations for civil service positions, ensuring that the civil service appointments were apportioned among the several states based on population, and seeing to it that no person in the public service is obligated to contribute to any political cause.
The CSC was also charged with ensuring that all civil servants wait for a probationary period before being appointed and that no appointee uses his or her official authority to affect political changes either through coercion or influence..
THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
In the late 1970s as the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal prompted the public to a fever pitch of skepticism about government itself.
Congress and the president responded with the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which abolished the Civil Service Commission.
In its place, the law created two new federal agencies: the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
The OPM has responsibility for recruiting, interviewing, and testing potential government employees in order to choose those who should be hired.
The MSPB is responsible for investigating charges of agency wrongdoing and hearing appeals when corrective actions are ordered. Together these new federal agencies were intended to correct perceived and real problems with the merit system, protect employees from managerial abuse, and generally make the bureaucracy more efficient.
MERIT-BASED SELECTION
The general trend from the 1880s to today has been toward a civil service system that is increasingly based on merit.
In this system, the large majority of jobs in individual bureaucracies are tied to the needs of the organization rather than to the political needs of the party bosses or political leaders.
A general civil service position announcement will describe the government agency or office seeking an employee, an explanation of what the agency or office does, an explanation of what the position requires, and a list of the knowledge, skills, and abilities, commonly referred to as KSAs, deemed especially important for fulfilling the role.
A budget analyst position, for example, would include KSAs such as experience with automated financial systems, knowledge of budgetary regulations and policies, the ability to communicate orally, and demonstrated skills in budget administration, planning, and formulation. The merit system requires that a person be evaluated based on his or her ability to demonstrate KSAs that match those described or better. The individual who is hired should have better KSAs than the other applicants.
MODELS OF BUREAUCRACY
Bureaucracies are complex institutions designed to accomplish specific tasks.
This complexity, and the fact that they are organizations composed of human beings, can make it challenging for us to understand how bureaucracies work.
Sociologists, however, have developed a number of models for understanding the process.
Each model highlights specific traits that help explain the organizational behavior of governing bodies and associated functions.
The Weberian Model
The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist.
Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the demands of citizens for government services.
Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy, the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized, and governed by formal procedures.
Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be better able to solve problems through logical reasoning.
Such efforts would eliminate entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge, provide a system for managing and performing repetitive tasks that required little or no discretion, impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided, reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.
The Acquisitive Model
The acquisitive model proposes that bureaucracies are naturally competitive and power-hungry.
This means bureaucrats, especially at the highest levels, recognize that limited resources are available to feed bureaucracies, so they will work to enhance the status of their own bureaucracy to the detriment of others.
This effort can sometimes take the form of merely emphasizing to Congress the value of their bureaucratic task, but it also means the bureaucracy will attempt to maximize its budget by depleting all its allotted resources each year.
This ploy makes it more difficult for legislators to cut the bureaucracy’s future budget, a strategy that succeeds at the expense of thrift. In this way, the bureaucracy will eventually grow far beyond what is necessary and create bureaucratic waste that would otherwise be spent more efficiently among the other bureaucracies.
The Monopolistic Model
Monopolistic model recognize the similarities between a bureaucracy like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a private monopoly like a regional power company or internet service provider that has no competitors.
Such organizations are frequently criticized for waste, poor service, and a low level of client responsiveness. Consider, for example, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BCA), the federal bureaucracy charged with issuing passports to citizens.
There is no other organization from which a U.S. citizen can legitimately request and receive a passport, a process that normally takes several weeks. Thus there is no reason for the BCA to become more efficient or more responsive or to issue passports any faster.
There are rare bureaucratic exceptions that typically compete for presidential favor, most notably organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the intelligence agencies in the Department of Defense.
These bureaucracies have little reason to become more efficient or responsive, nor are they often penalized for chronic inefficiency or ineffectiveness. Therefore, there is little reason for them to adopt cost-saving or performance measurement systems. While some economists argue that the problems of government could be easily solved if certain functions are privatized to reduce this prevailing incompetence, bureaucrats are not as easily swayed.
TYPES OF BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONS
Cabinet departments are major executive offices that are directly accountable to the president.
They include the Departments of State, Defense, Education, Treasury, and several others.
Occasionally, a department will be eliminated when government officials decide its tasks no longer need direct presidential and congressional oversight, such as happened to the Post Office Department in 1970.
Each cabinet department has a head called a secretary, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
These secretaries report directly to the president, and they oversee a huge network of offices and agencies that make up the department.
Within these large bureaucratic networks are a number of undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy secretaries, and many others.
The Department of Justice is the one department that is structured somewhat differently. Rather than a secretary and undersecretaries, it has an attorney general, an associate attorney general, and a host of different bureau and division heads
Independent Executive Agencies and Regulatory Agencies
Like cabinet departments, independent executive agencies report directly to the president, with heads appointed by the president.
Unlike the larger cabinet departments, however, independent agencies are assigned far more focused tasks.
These agencies are considered independent because they are not subject to the regulatory authority of any specific department.
They perform vital functions and are a major part of the bureaucratic landscape of the United States.
Some prominent independent agencies are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which collects and manages intelligence vital to national interests, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), charged with developing technological innovation for the purposes of space exploration, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which enforces laws aimed at protecting environmental sustainability.
Government Coperations
They exist because the services they provide are partly subject to market forces and tend to generate enough profit to be self-sustaining, but they also fulfill a vital service the government has an interest in maintaining.
Unlike a private corporation, a government corporation does not have stockholders. Instead, it has a board of directors and managers.
This distinction is important because whereas a private corporation’s profits are distributed as dividends, a government corporation’s profits are dedicated to perpetuating the enterprise.
Unlike private businesses, which pay taxes to the federal government on their profits, government corporations are exempt from taxes.
The most widely used government corporation is the U.S. Postal Service.
Amtrak was the government’s response to the decline in passenger rail travel in the 1950s and 1960s as the automobile came to dominate.
BUREAUCRATIC RULEMAKING
Once the particulars of implementation have been spelled out in the legislation authorizing a new program, bureaucracies move to enact it.
When they encounter grey areas, many follow the federal negotiated rulemaking process to propose a solution, that is, detailing how particular new federal polices, regulations, and/or programs will be implemented in the agencies.
Congress cannot possibly legislate on that level of detail, so the experts in the bureaucracy do so.
BUREAUCRATIC RULEMAKING
Before it was adopted, bureaucracies used a procedure called notice-and-comment rulemaking.
This practice required that agencies attempting to adopt rules publish their proposal in the Federal Register, the official publication for all federal rules and proposed rules.
By publishing the proposal, the bureaucracy was fulfilling its obligation to allow the public time to comment.
Rather than encouraging the productive interchange of ideas, the comment period had the effect of creating an adversarial environment in which different groups tended to make extreme arguments for rules that would support their interests.
As a result, administrative rulemaking became too lengthy, too contentious, and too likely to provoke litigation in the courts.
GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATIC OVERSIGHT
The ability for bureaucracies to develop their own rules and in many ways control their own budgets has often been a matter of great concern for elected leaders.
As a result, elected leaders have employed a number of strategies and devices to control public administrators in the bureaucracy.
Congress is particularly empowered to apply oversight of the federal bureaucracy because of its power to control funding and approve presidential appointments.
Occasionally, however, when a particular bureaucracy has committed or contributed to a blunder of some magnitude, the hearings can become quite animated and testy.
CITIZEN BUREAUCRATIC OVERSIGHT
The two most important laws are the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the Government in Sunshine Act of 1976.
Freedom of Information Act of 1966 (FOIA), provides journalists and the general public the right to request records from various federal agencies. These agencies are required by law to release that information unless it qualifies for one of nine exemptions. These exceptions cite sensitive issues related to national security or foreign policy, internal personnel rules, trade secrets, violations of personnel privacy rights, law enforcement information, and oil well data.
CITIZEN BUREAUCRATIC OVERSIGHT
Sunshine Act of 1976 is different from FOIA in that it requires all multi-headed federal agencies to hold their meetings in a public forum on a regular basis.
The name “Sunshine Act” is derived from the old adage that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”—the implication being that governmental and bureaucratic corruption thrive in secrecy but shrink when exposed to the light of public scrutiny.
The act defines a meeting as any gathering of agency members in person or by phone, whether in a formal or informal manner.
Sunshine Act allows for exceptions including meetings where classified information is discussed, proprietary data has been submitted for review, employee privacy matters are discussed, criminal matters are brought up, and information would prove financially harmful to companies were it released.
THE END
Chapter 14
State and Local Government
PL-102-OL1
Instructor Walter Pearn
Chapter Objectives
Explain how the balance of power between national and state governments shifted with the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.
Identify parts of the Constitution that grant power to the national government and parts that support states’ rights.
Identify two fiscal policies by which the federal government exerts control over state policy decisions.
Compare Daniel Elazar’s three forms of political culture.
Describe how cultural differences between the states can shape attitudes about the role of government and citizen participation.
Discuss the main criticisms of Daniel Elazar’s theory.
Chapter Objectives
Identify the formal powers and responsibilities of modern-day governors.
List the basic functions performed by state legislatures.
Describe how state legislatures vary in size, diversity, party composition, and professionalism.
Describe the history of state legislative term limits.
Compare the costs and benefits of term limits.
Identify the differences between county and municipal governments in terms of their responsibilities and funding sources.
Describe the two primary types of municipal government and the three basic types of county government.
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
Before the ratification of the Constitution, the state governments’ power far exceeded that held by the national government.
The national government was limited, lacking both a president to oversee domestic and foreign policy and a system of federal courts to settle disputes between the states.
Each state legislature appointed its own Congressional representatives, subject to recall by the states, and each state was given the authority to collect taxes from its citizens.
Limiting national government power was not the delegates’ only priority. They also wanted to prevent any given state from exceeding the authority and independence of the others.
The delegates ultimately worked to create a level playing field between the individual states that formed the confederation. For instance, the Articles of Confederation could not be amended without the approval of each state, and each state received one vote in Congress, regardless of population.1
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
Congress struggled to conduct business and to ensure the financial credibility of the new country’s government.
One difficulty was its inability to compel the individual states to cover their portion of Revolutionary War debt.
Attempts to recoup these funds through the imposition of tariffs were vetoed by states with a vested financial interest in their failure.
Given the inherent weaknesses in the system set up by the Articles, in 1787 the delegates came together once again to consider amendments to the Articles, but they ended up instead considering a new design for the government.
Today this structure of power sharing is referred to as federalism.
Ultimately, the framers settled on a system in which power would be shared: The national government had its core duties, the state governments had their duties, and other duties were shared equally between them.
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
The specific delegated or expressed powers granted to Congress and to the president were clearly spelled out in the body of the Constitution under Article I, Section 8, and Article II, Sections 2 and 3.
Powers Not Specified: The Tenth Amendment
All powers not granted to the U.S. Congress by Article I, Section 8 are left to the states. Worried that these limitations to the powers of the federal government were not clearly enough stated in the original Constitution, the First Congress adopted the Tenth Amendment, which clearly states that all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people.
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
Despite the Constitution’s broad grants of state authority, one of the central goals of the Anti-Federalists, a group opposed to several components of the Constitution, was to preserve state government authority, protect the small states, and keep government power concentrated in the hands of the people.
The Tenth Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to create a class of powers, known as reserved powers, exclusive to state governments. The amendment specifically reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In essence, if the Constitution does not decree that an activity should be performed by the national government and does not restrict the state government from engaging in it, then the state is seen as having the power to perform the function. In other words, the power is reserved to the states.
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
The national government was given implied powers that, while not clearly stated, are inferred.
These powers stem from the elastic clause in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which provides Congress the authority “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the Foregoing powers.”
This statement has been used to support the federal government’s playing a role in controversial policy matters, such as the provision of healthcare, the expansion of power to levy and collect taxes, and regulation of interstate commerce.
Finally, Article VI declared that the U.S. Constitution and any laws or treaties made in connection with that document were to supersede constitutions and laws made at the state level. This clause, better known as the supremacy clause, makes clear that any conflict in law between the central (or federal) government and the regional (or state) governments is typically resolved in favor of the central government.
STATE POWER AT THE FOUNDING
Besides reserved powers, the states also retained concurrent powers, or responsibilities shared with the national government.
As part of this package of powers, the state and federal governments each have the right to collect income tax from their citizens and corporate tax from businesses. They also share responsibility for building and maintaining the network of interstates and highways and for making and enforcing laws .
For instance, many state governments have laws regulating motorcycle and bicycle helmet use, banning texting and driving, and prohibiting driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
POWER AT THE SUBSTATE LEVEL
The U.S. Constitution is silent on the dispersion of power between states and localities within each state.
The power independent of the federal government resides first with the state.
Through their own constitutions and statutes, states decide what to require of local jurisdictions and what to delegate.
This structure represents the legal principle of Dillon’s Rule, named for Iowa Supreme Court justice John F. Dillon. Dillon argued that state actions trump those of the local government and have supremacy.
In this view, cities and towns exist at the pleasure of the state.
Indeed, most states have supremacy clauses over local governments in their constitutions.
POWER AT THE SUBSTATE LEVEL
State and local governments must work together to ensure that citizens receive adequate services.
Given the necessity of cooperation, many states have granted local governments some degree of autonomy and given them discretion to make policy or tax decisions.
This added independence is called home rule, and the transfer of power is typically spelled out within a charter.
Charters are similar to state constitutions: they provide a framework and a detailed accounting of local government responsibilities and areas of authority.
Property taxes
Can be assessed on homes, land, and businesses.
The local government’s reliance on property tax revenue can be problematic.
First, unlike sales tax, the collection of which is spaced out in small increments across multiple transactions, property tax is collected in one or two lump sums and is therefore highly visible and unpopular.
Response to tax rate increases, many states have placed legal or constitutional limits on regional governments’ ability to raise property taxes.
Drawback to local governments’ reliance on property tax:
Is that property values vary with the economic health of a given area
The quality of school districts
The overall desirability of a state, municipality, or county.
Significant parcels of land in many cities are also tax-exempt, including property occupied by colleges, churches, and other nonprofit organizations. Boston is a good example as almost 50 percent of the assessed value of property is tax-exempt.16 College towns face the same challenge.
Mortgage crisis began in 2007
Property values decreased in many areas of the country
Many homeowners defaulted on their mortgages because their homes were now worth less than they had borrowed to buy them.
Decline in property values, local governments faced a loss in tax revenue at the same time states were cutting back on aid; tax collections were also down because of economic conditions and the inability to derive income tax from internet sales.
A number of municipalities filed for bankruptcy in the face of fiscal distress during the economic recession.
MORALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
Sees the government as a means to better society and promote the general welfare.
Expect political officials to be honest in their dealings with others
Put the interests of the people they serve above their own
Commit to improving the area they represent.
The political process is seen in a positive light and not as a vehicle tainted by corruption.
Moralistic states thus tend to support an expanded role for government.
They are more likely to believe government should promote the general welfare by allocating funds to programs that will benefit the poor.
See it as the duty of public officials to advocate for new programs that will benefit marginal citizens or solve public policy problems, even when public pressure to do so is nonexistent.
MORALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
States that identify with this culture value citizen engagement and desire citizen participation in all forms of political affairs.
In Elazar’s model, citizens from moralistic states should be more likely to donate their time and/or resources to political campaigns and to vote. This occurs for two main reasons.
First, state law is likely to make it easier for residents to register and to vote because mass participation is valued.
Second, citizens who hail from moralistic states should be more likely to vote because elections are truly contested. In other words, candidates will be less likely to run unopposed and more likely to face genuine competition from a qualified opponent.
According to Elazar, the heightened competition is a function of individuals’ believing that public service is a worthwhile endeavor and an honorable profession.
INDIVIDUALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
Sees the government as a mechanism for addressing issues that matter to individual citizens and for pursuing individual goals.
People in this culture interact with the government in the same manner they would interact with a marketplace.
They expect the government to provide goods and services they see as essential, and the public officials and bureaucrats who provide them expect to be compensated for their efforts.
The focus is on meeting individual needs and private goals rather than on serving the best interests of everyone in the community.
New policies will be enacted if politicians can use them to garner support from voters or other interested stakeholders, or if there is great demand for these services on the part of individuals.
Given their focus on pursuing individual objectives, states with an individualistic mindset will tend to advance tax breaks as a way of trying to boost a state’s economy or as a mechanism for promoting individual initiative and entrepreneurship.
For instance, New Jersey governor Chris Christie made headlines in 2015 when discussing the incentives he used to attract businesses to the state. Christie encouraged a number of businesses to move to Camden, where unemployment has risen to almost 14 percent, by providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks.
INDIVIDUALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
The governor hopes these corporate incentives will spur job creation for citizens who need employment in an economically depressed area of the state.
Since this theoretical lens assumes that the objective of politics and the government is to advance individual interests.
They will tend to remain involved if they get enjoyment from their participation or rewards in the form of patronage appointments or financial compensation.
As a result of these personal motivations, citizens in individualistic states will tend to be more tolerant of corruption among their political leaders and less likely to see politics as a noble profession in which all citizens should engage.
Voters are loyal to the candidates who hold the same party affiliation they do. As a result, unlike the case in moralistic cultures, voters do not pay much attention to the personalities of the candidates when deciding how to vote and are less tolerant of third-party candidates.
TRADITIONALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
Sees the government as necessary to maintaining the existing social order, the status quo.
Only elites belong in the political enterprise, and as a result, new public policies will be advanced only if they reinforce the beliefs and interests of those in power.
Like the individualistic culture, the traditionalistic culture believes in the importance of the individual. But instead of profiting from corporate ventures, settlers in traditionalistic states tied their economic fortunes to the necessity of slavery on plantations throughout the South.
When elected officials do not prioritize public policies that benefit them, those on the social and economic fringes of society can be plagued by poverty and pervasive health problems.
For example, poverty is a problem across the United States, the South has the highest incidence.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the South also leads the nation in self-reported obesity, closely followed by the Midwest. These statistics present challenges for lawmakers not only in the short term but also in the long term, because they must prioritize fiscal constraints in the face of growing demand for services.
TRADITIONALISTIC POLITICAL CULTURE
While moralistic cultures expect and encourage political participation by all citizens, traditionalistic cultures are more likely to see it as a privilege reserved for only those who meet the qualifications.
As a result, voter participation will generally be lower in a traditionalistic culture, and there will be more barriers to participation (e.g., a requirement to produce a photo ID at the voting booth).
Conservatives argue that these laws reduce or eliminate fraud on the part of voters, while liberals believe they disproportionally disenfranchise the poor and minorities and constitute a modern-day poll tax.
GOVERNORS IN CHARGE
Anyone elected to the office of governor assumes tremendous responsibility overnight.
He or she becomes the spokesperson for the state and their political party
Accepts blame or praise for handling decision-making in times of crisis
Oversees the implementation of public policy and helps shepherd legislation through the lawmaking process.
Governors must learn to work well with other lawmakers, bureaucrats, cabinet officials, and with the citizens who elected them to office in the first place. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, provides a good case in point.
Three of the governor’s chief functions are to:
Influence the legislative process through an executive budget proposal
A policy agenda
Vetoes.
GOVERNORS IN CHARGE
The ability to veto legislation is just one of the formal powers governors have at their disposal.
Formal powers: are powers the governor may exercise that are specifically outlined in state constitutions or state law.
Unlike U.S. presidents, many governors also have additional veto powers at their disposal, which enhances their ability to check the actions of the legislative branch. For instance, most states provide governors the power of the line-item veto.
Line-item veto gives governors the ability to strike out a line or individual portions of a bill while letting the remainder pass into law.
Approximately 30 percent of governors have the power of an amendatory veto, which allows them to send a bill back to the legislature and request a specific amendment to it.
Finally, a small number of governors, including the governor of Texas, also have the power of a reduction veto, which allows them to reduce the budget proposed in a piece of legislation.
GOVERNORS IN CHARGE
Pardon absolves someone of blame for a crime and can secure his or her release from prison.
Governors can also commute sentences, reducing the time an individual must serve, if there are doubts about the person’s guilt, concerns about his or her mental health, or reason to feel the punishment was inappropriately harsh.
In the past ten years, the governors of New Jersey and Illinois have commuted the sentences of all inmates on death row before repealing the death penalty in their states.
THE FUNCTIONS OF STATE LEGISLATURES
State legislatures serve three primary functions.
Researching
Writing
Passing legislation.
Members represent their districts and work to meet requests for help from citizens within it. Finally, legislatures perform an oversight function for the executive branch.
THE FUNCTIONS OF STATE LEGISLATURES
Delegate legislator represents the will of those who elected him or her to office and acts in their expressed interest, even when it goes against personal belief about what is ultimately in the constituency’s best interest.
Trustees believe they were elected to exercise their own judgment and know best because they have the time and expertise to study and understand an issue.
Thus, a trustee will be willing to vote against the desire of the constituency so long as he or she believes it is in the people’s best interest. A trustee will also be more likely to vote his or her conscience on issues that are personal to him or her, such as on same-sex marriage or abortion rights.
THE COMPOSITION OF STATE LEGISLATURES
In most states, the legislative function is divided between two bodies: a state house and a state senate.
New Jersey Assembly and Senate.
New Jersey Legislature.
Assembly has consisted of 80 members.
Two members are elected from each of New Jersey’s 40 legislative districts for a term of two years, each representing districts with average populations of 210,359.
To be eligible to run, a potential candidate must be at least 21 years of age and must have lived in their district for at least one year prior to the election and have lived in the state of New Jersey for two years.
They also must be residents of their districts.
Membership in the Assembly is considered a part-time job, and many members have employment in addition to their legislative work.
Assembly members serve two-year terms, elected every odd-numbered year in November.
THE COMPOSITION OF STATE LEGISLATURES
New Jersey Senate was established as the upper house of the New Jersey Legislature.
There are 40 legislative districts, representing districts with average populations of 210,359.
Each district has one senator.
Prior to the election in which they are chosen, senators must be a minimum of 30 years old and a resident of the state for four years to be eligible to serve in office.
NJ Senator can serve one two-year term, and two four-year terms every ten years is considered a 2-4-4 term system.
THE BASICS OF TERM LIMITS
Term limits restrict the length of time a member can serve in the state legislature by capping either lifetime service or the number of consecutive terms.
Consecutive term limits, a member can serve for only a specified period of time in either the state house or the state senate, most commonly eight years.
To try to regain a seat in the legislature once the limit has been met, the member will have to wait to run for office again. If the member succeeds, the clock will reset, and the legislator may once again serve up to the limit set by the state.
In states with a lifetime ban, such as Oklahoma, members can serve only one time for the number of years allotted, and they are not permitted to run for office again.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT
The most common form of county government is the commission system. Under this structure, an elected commission, which generally consists of a small number of commissioners, serves as the governing body within the county, performing all legislative and executive functions. These include adopting a budget, passing county resolutions, and hiring and firing county officials.77
Under the council-administrator system, the voters elect council members to serve for a specified period of time, and the council in turn appoints an administrator to oversee the operation of the government. The administrator serves at the directive of the council and can be terminated by the council. The goal of this arrangement is to divide administrative and policymaking responsibilities between the elected council and the appointed administrator.78
Under a council-elected executive system, the voters elect both the members of the council and the executive. The executive performs functions similar to those of the state governor. For instance, he or she can veto the actions of the council, draft a budget, and provide suggestions regarding public policy.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT
Although the tasks they perform can vary from state to state, most counties have:
Courthouse
County officials, such as the sheriff, the county clerk, the assessor, the treasurer, the coroner, and the engineer.
For instance, the county coroner investigates the cause of death when suspicious circumstances are present. The county clerk oversees the registration of voters and certifies election results for the county. In addition, this officeholder typically keeps the official birth, death, and marriage records.
The county treasurer oversees the collection and distribution of funds within the county, while the county assessor conducts property tax evaluations and informs individual citizens or business owners of their right to contest the appraised value of their property.
A county engineer will oversee the maintenance and construction of county infrastructure.
In short, counties help to maintain roads and bridges, courthouses and jails, parks and pools, and public libraries, hospitals, and clinics.
CITY GOVERNMENT
The majority of municipal governments operate on one of two governing models: a mayor-council system or a council-manager system.
Under the mayor-council system voters elect both a mayor and members of the city council.
The city council performs legislative functions and the mayor the executive functions.
Under this system, the mayor may be given a great deal of authority or only limited powers.
Under a strong mayor system, the mayor will be able to veto the actions of the council, appoint and fire the heads of city departments, and produce a budget.
Under a weak mayor system, the mayor has little authority compared to the council and acts in a ceremonial capacity as a spokesperson for the city.
CITY GOVERNMENT
In a council-manager system of government, either the members of the city council are elected by voters along with a mayor who presides over the council, or the voters elect members of the city council and the mayor is chosen from among them.
In either case, the city council will then appoint a city manager to carry out the administrative functions of the municipal government.
This frees the city council to address political functions such as setting policy and formulating the budget.
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