Govt Page 16-18 Flashcards
An alternative to the progressive income tax where individuals pay the same percentage regardless of how much they earn.
Flat tax
Federally funded program gives food coupons to low income people based on income and family size.
Food stamp program
The portion of national income that individuals and groups earn.
Income distribution
A shared program between the federal and local governments that covers hospital and nursing home costs of low-income people.
Medicaid
Program that covers hospital and medical costs of people 65 years of age and older as well as disabled individuals receiving Social Security.
Medicare
References the point at which an individual is considered living in what has been called a “culture of poverty.”
Poverty line
A tax based upon the amount of money an individual earned, such as an income tax. Became legal as a result of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Progressive tax
A tax that is imposed on individuals regardless of how much they earn, such as a sales tax.
Regressive tax
A minimum government guarantee that ensures that individuals living in poverty will receive support in the form of social welfare programs.
Safety net
Entitlement programs such as Social Security and programs such as Aid to Dependent Children paid for by the federal government.
Social welfare
An alternative to the traditional welfare, where an individual is trained to work instead of receiving welfare.
Workfare
Law that established national standards for states, strict auto emissions guidelines, and regulation, which set air pollution standards for private industry.
Clean Air Act (1970)
Passed in 1987, this law established safe drinking standards and creates penalties for water polluters.
Clean Water Act
Wildlife threatened by extinction, many protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Endangered species
Regulates air and water pollution, pesticides, radiation, solid waste, and toxic substances. It is the main environmental regulatory agency.
Environmental Protection Agency
Public policy dealing with the consumption and protection of natural resources.
National energy policy
1969 legislation that required government agencies to issue environmental impact statements with the Environmental Protection Agency whenever they proposed policies that could negatively affect the environment.
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
Those natural resources such as oil, which based on consumption, are limited.
Non-renewable resources
Created as part of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, it was given jurisdiction to license and regulate commercial use of nuclear technologies and monitor waste storage and transportation of materials arising from its use.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Those natural resources such as solar energy that can be used over again.
Renewable resources
Legislation that mandated the cleanup of abandoned toxic waste dumps and authorized premarket testing of chemical substances. It allowed the EPA to ban or regulate the manufacture, sale, or use of any chemicals that could present an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or environment,” and outlawed certain chemicals such as PCBs.
Superfund
Treaty wherein America and the Soviet Union agreed to limit antiballistic missile sites and interceptor missiles.
Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972
Going close to the edge of an all-out war in order to contain communism.
Brinkmanship
An era of American foreign policy lasting from the end of World War II (1945) to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) where American policy was defined as containment of communism.
Cold War
