G18: Multiple Choice Questions

Write 3 multiple-choice questions (five answer choices) for class review: one about the presidency, one about the bureaucracy, and one about economics.

• What is an example of an Independent Regulatory Commission
• Treasury 
• Amtrak
• NASA
• Federal Communications Committee
• What is a Constitutional power that the President has over Congress? 
• The Power to Declare war 
• Regulating the National Budget 
• Appointing Ambassadors
• None of the Above 
• What is a Bureaucracy?
• A Federal office
• Hierarchy of unelected officials
• Congress 
• The House and Senate 

Answers: 1) FCC, 2) Appointing Ambassadors, 3) Hierarchy of unelected officials

H1: About a Justice- Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas, known as the "Intellectual leader of the Supreme Court" assumed office in 1991, and was appointed by George H.W. Bush. He is considered to be one of the most conservative Justices in the court, sticking to his views no matter what. He is a strong Supreme Court Justice, but he is also silent; he hasn't spoken formally during a Supreme Court case in five years.
Clarence Thomas is an interesting person mainly because he is a black republican. The republican party focused on that because there are not that many minorities on their side. He is heavily against Obamacare, and is considered to be an originalist (A person interested in sticking to the exact words in the US Constitution). He also tends to disagree frequently with the Supreme Court.

G12: The President's Budget

1. What priorities seem to be most important to the President? Give evidence from your readings -- and explain why these programs might be important priorities to him.
1. The two issues that seem to be the most important to the president are Social Security and Medicare. Obama has been focusing on these issues for a while now, but he has been getting harsh criticism from the left. Obama wants to tax the wealthy and assist the lower class so they can receive benefits that they can survive on. 
2. What are some especially notable changes that the President proposes, compared to the previous year's budget? Why might he want to make those changes?
1. Well a huge difference compared to his budget now is that Obama wants to give tax credits to the lower class, using higher taxes from the rich to pay for it. His focus seemed to shift from Social Security to the issue of taxes and a little bit of education. Obama is in his final years of his presidency, so I believe he is really putting in the ideas that he originally wanted to act upon, but he was too nervous to do. Also, he sees that the working poor cannot survive on the amount of money they receive.  
3. What elements of his plan will his opponents in Congress be most likely to strongly oppose? Why?
1. Congress have already expressed their opinion on Obama's budget plan for 2014, and the left is mainly opposed to the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy, and cutting off tax breaks for corporations. The political left would dislike this the most because their taxes will be raised, and the businesses they were supported by would be most affected by this. 

G10: News Analysis

100 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. How do we stop that?

• In response to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's recent death, the Washington Post brought attention to the startling amount of drug overdoses that occur everyday in the United States. I believe that if the Government and personal families made help readily available, there would be less overdoses.  Drugs are a huge issue, especially in low income areas, and if healthcare was more available to people in situations where they couldn't really afford it, issues like this would be fixed. Not only issues about drugs, but other issues like disease and simple health issues. 

G9: Budget Games

1. To fix the deficit, I would cut spending and raise taxes. I would cut spending on things like "The War on Drugs", and cut military spending. I would not want to cut Veterans benefits though. I would raise taxes on the higher income people, and require people who received bailouts to pay back the money. 
2. To reduce the deficit in the games, I decided to reduce the military to half it's size, reduce Social Security for higher incomes, and place a Millionaire's tax on people who make more than 1 million dollars. I decided that we didn't need a huge military, and even if we did cut the military in half, we would still have the biggest military in the world. I put lower Social Security for higher incomes and a millionaire tax to give people with lower income a chance to live a happy retirement. I avoided affecting the lower classes because they tend to be the first ones hit by economic reform. 

G4: Presidential Powers

(a) Executive Orders and Powers as Commander in Chief give the President complete power to take out orders that are important for our country. Executive orders have the full power of any law, and can be put into effect immediately. This overrules all of the checks of congress, but the judicial branch can still take down this law if it is seen as unconstitutional. Prior to the War Powers Resolution, Presidents could send in troops to different countries without congress approval. Now, they have certain guidelines in place to limit the powers of the president, although they are rarely followed.

(b) The budgetary powers of congress limit the amount of money that the President's Office of Management and Budget can receive. After Nixon's Presidency, and his refusal to spend money the way that congress wanted to, they came up with the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Legislative oversight powers are used to control the power of the president and make sure that everything occurring in the government is constitutional.

G2: Current Events Connection

1. LINK: 
• Web Story 
2. UNIQUE SUMMARY: 
• The article describes Obama's changes for Immigration laws. Although they are good, republicans are skeptical because of Obama not following the Immigration laws already in place. 
3. FORMAL POWERS: 
• Since the president can make laws dealing with foreign policy, he can use that to decide what he can do to make his immigration reform into law. 
4. INFORMAL POWERS: 
• The president can enact executive orders, which puts laws in place almost immediately.