Days 1-6

Question 1

Means-Tested

Answer 1

Based on income and assets; all welfare programs are means-tested income transfers

Question 2

Entitlement

Answer 2

Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment and Welfare Programs.

Entitlement programs are rights granted to citizens and certain non-citizens by federal law.

Question 3

DEFINITION of POWER OF PROBLEM

Answer 3

A condition becomes a problem when recognized by a significant number of people or a number of significant people.

Successfully defining conditions as problems (smog, learning disabilities, global warming, etc.) is perhaps the most important single step in obtaining policy change.

Question 4

PLURALISM

Answer 4

A core political science theory about how groups function in our political system

• adherents believe the political process is dominated by a number of autonomous groups that compete in an open political system
• professional organizations, trade unions, business and financial lobbies
• these various groups go about attempting to secure their policy preferences
• the result of this competition among groups produces observed policies
• pluralists hold that there is equality in political opportunity

Question 5

ELITE THEORY

Answer 5

The term power elite was used to describe a relatively small, loosely knit group of people who tend to dominate American policymaking

bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military, and government elites who control the principal institutions in the U.S. and whose opinions and actions influence the decisions of policymakers

Question 6

FEDERAL DECISION THAT GAVE RISE TO SUPER PACS

Answer 6

SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission:

A federal court found restrictions on individual contributions to organizations seeking to influence elections to be unconstitutional.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:

This U.S. Supreme court decision decided that limits on corporate and union spending to influence elections was unconstitutional

Question 7

Homestead Act of 1862

Answer 7

The Homestead Act of 1862 signed into law by Abraham Lincoln turned over vast amounts of the public domain to private citizens.

270 million acres or 10% of the area of the United States was claimed and settled under this act there was a lot of corruption meant to stem land monopoly but actually facilitated due to the difficulty of farmers to
get to the auctions, raise the capital and successfully farm speculators often worked for wealthy land owners to outbid or lay claim to the land before others could

Question 8

What can Super Pacs do to raise money.

Answer 8

•Super PACS can raise unlimited money from corporations, associations, individuals, unions and spend that money to advocate for candidates.

Question 9

What are the categories of spending in the national budget?

Answer 9

Mandatory (63%) - $2.58 trillion

Discretionary (30%) - $1.21 trillion

Interest on Federal Debt (8%)- $316 billion

Question 10

What was the policy to deal with 4 million newly freed slaves?

Answer 10

Freedman’s Bureau

Mired in conflict from inception
“There was no tradition of government responsibility for a huge refugee population and no bureaucracy to administer a large welfare, employment and land reform program.”
The Freedman’s Bureau was dismantled in 1872, just 7 years after its inception.

Question 11

The Gilded Age

Answer 11

1865-1893

Period of rapid growth

Large industries developing monopolies

Scandals, politicians and industry
Extreme wealth for some and marked poverty and hardship for many, often described as the birth of modern capitalism spurred by laissez faire economic policy.

Question 12

What was the school of thought prior to the stock market crash of 1929?

Answer 12

Americans subscribed to a “boom and bust” school of economics.
America’s political and economic system remained largely laissez-faire from the establishment of the country through the Great Depression, it was widely believed that the economy would grow and prosper if market forces were left to their own. Until the Great Depression, monetary policy in modern terms did not exist.

Question 13

Who had the idea that individuals acting in their own self-interest, would lead to a stable system and assumes markets are inherently stable?

Answer 13

Adam Smith

Question 14

How does Keynesian macroeconomic theory represents a sharp departure from classical economics?

Answer 14

It assumes market economies are inherently unstable and that there is no self-correcting property in the market to return a depressed economy to growth and full employment.

Question 15

The Keynesian solution to the inherent instability of the market was?

Answer 15

Is for government to actively manage the economy through fiscal and monetary policy, government should intervene with fiscal and monetary policy to promote full employment, stable prices and economic growth

Question 16

What is Fiscal policy?

Answer 16

Government taxing or spending to stimulate or slow the economy.

According to Keynesian economics, when the government changes the levels of taxation and government spending, it influences aggregate demand and the level of economic activity.

Question 17

What is Monetary Policy?

Answer 17

The term “Monetary Policy” refers to what the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank influences the amount of money and credit in the U.S. economy.

What happens to money and credit affects interest rates (the cost of credit) and the performance of the U.S. economy.

Question 18

What caused the rapid expansion of the federal government into social welfare?

Answer 18

New Deal and a collection of programs to deal with the many difficulties of the Great Depression.

New Deal as the beginning of the modern welfare state
the changing nature of the office of the president as a policy-making entity under FDR whether New Deal policies, or, more likely the massive spending needed for WW II build up, the country enjoyed a strong economy post-WWII

Question 19

What were the marginal tax rates for 2016?

Answer 19

7 Brackets

10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, 39.6%

4 filing status, rates vary by these.

Based on taxable income not gross income

Taxable income = Gross income – deductions/exclusions

Question 20

What kind of analyses matter?

Answer 20

Distributional: a common way of framing; benefits based on income quintile.

Secondary: How increased or decreased “after tax” dollars affect spending, differences by quintile

Macroeconomic: Assumptions are needed for these analysis; involves prediction about how various actors will behave under new tax conditions.

Question 21

What can we know from what we observe?

Answer 21

We have implicit assumptions about why folks are in the predicament they are in.

• Policymakers implicit and explicit assumptions are expressed in policy so –
• It really matters what the origins of a problem are assumed to be.

Question 22

What is the Human capital theory

Answer 22

Refers to the skills, education, health, and training of individuals.

•The term capital is used because these skills or education are an integral part of us that is long-lasting, and can be applied in the labor market.

Question 23

How does this Human capital theory work?

Answer 23

If we theorize a labor market that works freely, the question of poverty is one of a lack of human capital skills.

We then think about job training, higher levels of education, technical training for growing segments of the economy, etc.

Question 24

What does the data tell us?

Answer 24

This intuition about education increasing earnings is supported by looking at large national data.

Census data shows us that average earnings for those with less education is lower than those with more education.

Question 25

What are a number of exceptions to this reasoning of human capital?

Answer 25

When unskilled work is off-putting, dangerous, or unsatisfying, the supply of these unskilled workers will likely be reduced and higher wages may be necessary to command an adequate work force.

• Likewise, when controls prevent entry into less-skilled jobs, wages again may be higher than those of skilled workers.
• Finally, when the supply of skilled workers is high relative to the demand for a particular occupation – wages may not be significantly (if at all) higher for highly educated workers.
• These exceptions aside, we typically assume that skilled workers will receive a positive return on the investments that they make in their human capital.

Question 26

social insurance

Answer 26

Is any government-sponsored program with the following four characteristics: the benefits, eligibility, requirements and other aspects of the program are defined by statute;

Explicit provision is made to account for the income and expenses (often through a trust fund).