Final Exam Terms

Question 1

Charles E. Lindblom (Reader No.68)

Answer 1

The public policy-making process is flawed because politicians don’t develop alternatives that encompass all possible means of achieving explicitly defined goals. Instead, policymakers look at vaguely defined goals that already exist and “solve” them according to the most vocal and powerful intersest in the most marginal way. We also thing about policy according to our own values & beliefs about government, which is why on one can ever agree on a “good” policy standard.

Question 2

Jim Holt (Reader No.70)

Answer 2

Holt raises questions on the ethicallity of putting a price on a human life, much as the EPA and Dept. of Transportation have, in order to create cost-efficient policies regarding human life (i.e. how much are we willing to spend to save lives?). He explores the cost-benefits analysis of the “statistical life” conclusion on how much a human life is worth –bth does suggest that money is the wrong way to measure a life while making decisions

Question 3

Bureaucracy

Answer 3

The complex structure of offices,tasks, rules, and principles of organization that are employed by all large-scale institution to coordinate the work of their personnel

Question 4

Clientele Agency

Answer 4

A department or bureau of government whose mission is to promote, serve, or represent a particular interest. For example: The Department of the Interior, Labor, and Commerce

Question 5

Regulatory Agency

Answer 5

A Department, bureau, or independent agency whose primary mission is to eliminate or restrict certain behaviors (individual conduct) defined as negative in themselves or negative in their consequences. For example: FDA in the Dept. of HEalth and human Services, OSHA in the Dept. of Labor

Question 6

Federal Reserve System (the Fed)

Answer 6

Consisting of twelve Federal Reserve, districts, the Fed facilitates exchanges of cash, checks and credit; it regulates member banks; and it deploys monetary policies to fight inflation and deflation

Question 7

Oversight

Answer 7

The effort by Congress, through hearings, investigations, and other techniques, to exercise control over the activities of executive agenices

Question 8

Bureaucratic Drift

Answer 8

the often-observed phenomenon of bureaucratic implementation that produces policy more to the liking of the bureaucracy than faithful to the original intention of the legislation that created it, but without triggering a political reaction from elected officials

Question 9

Deregulation

Answer 9

the policy of reducing or eliminating regulatory restraints on the conduct of individual or private institutions

Question 10

Devolution

Answer 10

the policy of removing a program from one level of government by deregulating it or passing it down to a lower level, for example from the national government to the state and local governments

Question 11

Keynesian Economic Theory

Answer 11

The government can stimulate the economy by increasing public spending or by cutting taxes

Question 12

Laissez-faire capitalism

Answer 12

An ecnomic system in which the means of production and istribution are privately owned and operated for profit with minimal or no governemtn interference

Question 13

Keynesian

Answer 13

A follower of the ecnomic theories of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that the government can stimulate the economy by increasing public spending or by cutting taxes

Question 14

Monetarist

Answer 14

A follower of ecnomic theories that contend that the role of the government in the economy hsould be limited to regulating the supply of money

Question 15

Supply-side Economics

Answer 15

Posits that reducing the marginal rate of taxation will create a productive economy by promoting levels of work and investment that would otherwise be discourgaed by higher taxes

Question 16

Franklin Roosevelt (Reader No.73)

Answer 16

In his campaign speech, Roosevelt declares that in order to compensate for the Great Depression, the federal governemtn needs to step in and provide much-needed relief in the fform of unemployment insurance, housing for hte poor, and public-workds programs. He wins the 1932 election over Hover, and the New Deal historically changes the level of involvement of the federal government in the economy

Question 17

Herbert Hoover (Reader No. 74)

Answer 17

Hoover was opposed to changing the role of government in the economy, which had been very unnoticeable to this point. The American economic system was strong because there was little government involvement and it was allowed to flow freely as the market. Hoover believed that the market would eventually correct itself, albeit gradually.

Question 18

Jon Gertner (Reader No.75)

Answer 18

Argues that GDP is not an accurate measure of overall economic well-being, because it includes spending that results from waste, unhealthy activites, or high-spending consumerism. A person that is spending a lot may not be acting in the nation’s best intersts. The GDP is like the car dashboard that ells the driver how fast s/he is going but nothing else about the car’s functioning. Gertner says that policital leaders would get a better picture of the nation’s performance from a “human development index”, which includes health, education, environment, employment, material well-being, interpersonal connectedness, political engagement, etc.

Question 19

Public Goods

Answer 19

Goods that, first, may be enjoyed by anyone if its is provided and, second, may not be denied to anyone once it has been provided

Question 20

Externalities

Answer 20

the differences between the private cost and the social cost of economic behavior

Question 21

Progressive Taxation

Answer 21

Taxation that hits upper income brackets more heavily

Question 22

Regressive Taxation

Answer 22

Taxation that hits lower income brackets more heavily

Question 23

Redistribution

Answer 23

A policy whose objective is to tax or spend in such a way as to reduce the disparities of wealth between the lowest and highest income brackets

Question 24

Mandatory Spending

Answer 24

Federal spending that is made up of “uncontrollables,” budget items that cannot be controlled through the regular budget process

• Retirement under Social Security
• Retirement for federal employees
• Umemployment assistance
• Medicare
• Farm price supports

Question 25

Uncontrollable Spending

Answer 25

a budgetary item that is beyond the control of budgetary committees and can be controled only by substantive legislation action in Congress. Some uncontrollables, such as interest on the debt, are beyond the power of Congress, because the terms of payments are set in contracts

Question 26

Discretionary Spending

Answer 26

Federal spending on programs that are controlled through the regular budget process

Question 27

Type I Error

Answer 27

a problem exists, and policymakers fail to do anything to do about it - they could respond and they don’t

Question 28

Type II Errors

Answer 28

A problem does not exist, but policy makers take action as if it did exist

Question 29

Bill McKibben (Reader No.71)

Answer 29

Declares that science is clear about the threat of global warming, and that it is too late to prevent significant temperature increases. He claims that shifting to a green-energy economy is bearable despite the costs, and that the shift could also possibly save money. Doing nothing would be worse than anything, would bring on catastropic consequences

Question 30

Bjorn Lomborg (Reader No.72)

Answer 30

Takes a pure cost-benefit approach to global warming, and says that most proposed soultions will produce little results at enormous cost. He says the money spent on these solutions would better go towards more immediate problems in the world: malaria, indoor air pollutions, etc. He urges greater spending on reserach and development for renewable energy.

Question 31

Noncontributory Program

Answer 31

A social Program that assists people based on demonstrated need rather than contributions they have made; also known as a public assistance program

Question 32

Means Testing

Answer 32

A procedure that determines eligibility for government public-assistance programs. A potential beneficiary must show a need and an inability to provide for that need. Example: Welfare

Question 33

Medicaid

Answer 33

A federally financed, state-operated program for medical service to low-income people

Question 34

Supplemental Security Income

Answer 34

A program providing a minimum monthyly income to people who pass a means teset and are sixty-five years old or older, blind, or disabled. SSI is financed from general revenues that are not Social Security contributions

Question 35

In-Kind Benefits

Answer 35

Goods and services provided to needy indiviudals and familiesby the federal governmetn as contrasted with cash benefits. The largest in-kind federal welfare program is food stamps

Question 36

Gary Burtless (Reader No. 78)

Answer 36

Ingnoring the increasing income gap between rich and poor Americans results in less confidence in government and threatens public health. There has been support for the working poor (i.e. the 1986 Tax Reform Act), but no comparable support for the non-working poor. To bridge the wage gap, Burtless proposes programs to bring the nonworking poor into the workforce as well as publicy subsidized health care to help families get out of poverty

Question 37

Barack Obama (Reader No. 81)

Answer 37

Outlines his prioties concerning his new healthcare bill: achieving as close to universal converage as possible without adding to the federal deficit, prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions or dropping them when they get ill, holding down health care costs, and encouraging competition between providers and insurers

Question 38

Marilyn Werber Serfani (Reader No. 82)

Answer 38

Nonpartisan National Journal report on the opinon of health care experts on the Obama healthcare bill. Experts were most imporessed with the progress towards univeral coverage, less impressed, with the cost control of the bill (couldn’t cut out the “Cadillac tax” to reduce expensive and unnecessary medical procedures)

Question 39

Yuval Levin (Reader No. 83)

Answer 39

An opponent to the health care bill, Levin urges repealing the law before most of it takes hold. He says that the plan will not control costs and will bankrupt the country; instead he believes that market-based solutions will allow competition to hold down costs. He argues that hte health care system cannot be fixed by one bill and instead small and incremental steps need to be taken to address the public’s real concerns

Question 40

Entitlement

Answer 40

The eligibility for benefits by virtue of a category defined by law. Categories can be changed only by legislation; deprivation of individual benefits can be determined only through due process in court

Question 41

Contributory Program

Answer 41

A social program financed in whole or in part by taxation or other mandatory contributions by its presnt or future recipients. The most important example is Social Secuity, which is financed by a payroll tax

Question 42

Social Security

Answer 42

a contributory welfare program into which working Americans place a percentage of their wages and from which they receive cash benefits after retirement

Question 43

Function of Executive Branch Agencies

Answer 43

• Implement laws
• Make and enforce rules
• Settle disputes

Question 44

Major differences in how the organization operate

Answer 44

• Retention of benefits of earnings
• Control over the factors of production
• Control over the organization’s goals (what they are trying to accomplish)

Question 45

Diefferences Between Public and Private Organzations

Answer 45

• Standards of evaluation
• Consequences of poor performance
• Lack of “market discipline” in public organizations

Question 46

Operating parts of the bureaucractic whole

Answer 46

• Cabinet departments
• Independent agenices
• Government corporations
• Independent Regulatory commissions

Question 47

Definitions and Characteristics of Market Economies

Answer 47

• Promoting stable markets
• Promoting economic prosperity
• Promoting business development
• Protecting employees and consumers

Question 48

Market Failures

Answer 48

• Monopolies
  
  • incentive to improve the product/service because nobody has an alternative
• Imperfect Information
  
  • Markets rely on perfect information
• Externalities
  
  • cost of a trasaction is placed on parties that are not actively engared in that transaction
• Lack of substitutability
  
  • free market felies of competition

Question 49

Role of Regulatory Policies

Answer 49

• Establishing Law and Order
  
  • be a minimal degree of predictability about basic rules of social interation
• Enforcing Contracts
  
  • Necessary in connection with exchanges of property
  • Must be enforceable, or it is meaningless
• Promoting Competition
  
  • must be maintained, and it must be easy for a producer to enter and compete
• Creating a Labor Force
  
  • society has provisions that force peop eto work

Question 50

The Policy Process

Answer 50

Political outcomes are the products of individual preferences and institutional procedures