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Essay Instructions: Public Policy

Write a 3 -4 page, APA-style paper that assesses a public policy of your choice that directly impacts the local government in the area where you reside. You are to determine the effects (positive/negative) that the selected policy has on the local government?s operational budget.

Text book
Lee Jr., R., Johnson, R. and Joyce, P. (2008). Public budgeting systems (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Just when you think we all can do a better job with the budget and appropriation than the current administration, we learn it?s a lot more complicated than we think. Chapter 10 discusses legislative intent, and the many processes that come before execution. Chapter 11 the financial management chapter, outlines the processes of accounting, reporting and auditing. I thought all that was the job of the GAO (the Office of Government Accounting), I did not know that the federal government contract this work out to private firms as well, interesting! It that because the GAO is on overload or is it a check and balance to prevent what the text calls ?a cooking of the books? (Lee, Jones, & Rice, 2008; p.409)? The Chapters are long, but very interesting.



Even more intriguing is a book written by Larry Saboto named A More Perfect Constitution that suggest 23 changes to the beloved document (some you read in Chapter 9, others are in the House and Senate for voting right now) that could lead to Congress working and actually passing the federal budget every year. I have listed them below. The proposed changes would make Congress more representative of the people they serve and bring the document up to date to respond to our changes in culture and socioeconomics. If your interest is beyond this, buy the book like I did and send me a note to let me know how much you like it.


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Essay Instructions: Public Policy Analysis

In a three to four page APA paper, create a public policy to address an issue you consider important. Construct the details of the policy utilizing one of the models listed below. Discuss the rationale of the policy and how your model will assist policy makers in their decision making and implementation processes. Evaluate your model utilizing the general criteria provided in the text. You are required to use at least two outside sources to support your position.

Models of Public Policies:
? Institutional Model
? Process Model
? Group Model
? Elite Model
? Rational Model
? Public Choice Model
? Incremental Model
? Game Theory Model
Dye, T. (2011). Understanding public policy. (P. P. Hall, Ed.) Upper Saddle River: Longman.
? Anderson, C. W. (1988). Political judgment and policy analysis. Public Administration Quarterly, 11(4), 439-462. (Document ID: 815441).
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? Boerner, K. & Uebelmesser, S. (2007). Migration and the welfare state: The economic power of the non-voter? International Tax and Public Finance, 14(1), 93-111. (Document ID: 1).

Essay Instructions: Public policies, as we have discussed, are the actions of government that respond to a collective need or our collective welfare. In this final paper, you are to select a policy domain and analyze it using the themes discussed in this class. The paper has two parts. The first consists of a discussion of a policy domain (see below), whereas the second part consists of an analysis of a particular policy proposal with the domain (see below). In the discussion of the policy domain, explore the larger debates that surround the area. Why is a public policy solution suggested at all in this domain? Why not leave it to the private sector? What value conflicts are reflected in this area? Some examples include equality vs. efficiency, individual vs. public good, equity of treatment across the nation vs. a state?s right to design a local policy solution. How is this policy domain embedded in our economic and democratic institutions?

In the second part of the paper, select a specific policy proposal (see below) and look more specifically at how some of the themes of the class are reflected in the specific policy. Is our preference for market-oriented solutions reflected in the plan? What implicit and explicit rights of citizenship are conferred in the policy and how are they defended? How is our preoccupation with individual rights played out? Do private property concerns enter into these policy discussions? Does the policy proposal have any differential impact on racial or ethnic populations?

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The above is the assignment from the professor. My policy domain is housing and the specific policy proposal is government sponsored, low interest rate home loans to low income people. A few things I would like to have specifically referenced are: 1) the way the Framers of the constitution held property owners in such high regard; i.e. much of the constitution was written to protect the elite property owners from the propertyless majority. 2) the issues of equity vs efficiency; i.e. this proposal ensures equity but not efficiency from an economic standpoint. It would be great to reference Arthur Okun?s book Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, if possible. 3) Concepts of social Darwinism; i.e. our country?s history of believing people should fend for themselves, take personal responsibility and that government should not intervene in the welfare of the collective.

Essay Instructions: Public Policy, Evidence and research

Just to
reiterate - this is an individually assessed piece of work. The most sensible way
to organise the material is probably to follow the four stages set out in the
original assignment brief and the presentation.

Please make sure that you address the question of the evidence put forward by the
various interest groups and the way in which that evidence differs (if it does)
according to the particular interest they are seeking to advance.

We had to do a presentation for this module which I will send as a resource, I will also send the Assignment Brief and the references where we got our information for the presentation.



There are faxes for this order.