Public Policy Public Policy

Whatever the government decides to do or not to do (Thomas Dye , Understanding Public Policy) Intentional course of action followed by a government institution or official for resolving an issue of public concern. (Cochran, Myer, Carr, Cayer) American Public Policy Relatively stable purposeful course of action taken by an actor or set of actors to resolve conflict ( James Anderson)

Rural Public Policy According to US Census Bureau lt 2500 Urban Public Policy According to US Census Bureau gt 2500 Categories of Public Policy
Substantive policies: what government is going to do Procedural policies: how government is going to do it Distributive Policies: Allocate services or benefits to particular segments of population Regulatory : Restrict or limit certain behaviors Self-Regulatory : Also restrict behaviors, but are controlled by the regulated group Redistributive Policies : Involve deliberate efforts by the government to shift the allocation of resources among broad classes or groups of the population Material Policies: Provide tangible resources or substantive power to the beneficiaries Symbolic Policies: Have little real material impact on people Collective and Private Goods Policies Collective goods Policy: if something is provided for one person, it must be provided for all (national defense) Private goods: may be broken into units and purchased by individuals The more something is considered a collective good, the more likely people are to accept its provision by government

Approaches to Policy Study (Models)

Political Systems Theory: Comprised of those identifiable and interrelated institutions and activities in a society that make authoritative allocations of values that are binding Black box Group Theory: Public policy is the product of group struggle Access the opportunity to express viewpoints to decision-makers

Elite Theory: Policy reflects values/preferences of a ruling elite. The few govern the many Institutionalism: Concentrates on the formal and legal aspects of governmental institutions Has little to say about what drives the policy process Rational-Choice Theory: Applies microeconomic theory to the analysis of political behavior Rational self-interest Individuals are the units of analysis There is no consensus on which is the best approach INSTITUTIONAL MODEL: describes specific intuitions and certain aspects of those institutions, structure, organizations, duties and function. Also analyze the effect these aspects have on policy outputs. PROCESS MODEL: identify problem, set agenda, and formulate, implementation and evaluation. Shows how decisions are made and how they should be made. Helps to understand activities involved in policy making. GROUP THEORY: interaction among group is the central aspect of politics. People are coming together through common interests. (Same as Plurilsm) ELITE THEORY: implies public policy does not truly reflect the wants to the people as much as the elites. RATIONAL MODEL- achieves maximum social gain. Policy should never have costs that exceed pain. Must know societies values, all alternatives, and the consequences of the alternatives. INCREMENTALISM-views public policy as a continuation of past government activities with only small modifications, consercative because it considers existing policy as a base and new programs are ignored. Believe that policies that are in effect has been proven, why actor twhat has proven effective. GAME THEORY-study of rational decisions wehre one choice depends on the outcome of another choice. An abstract and deductive model of policy making. More an analytic tool than a practical guide. PUBLIC CHOICE-the economic study of nonmarket decision making. Recognizes governemtn must perform certain functions that market is unable to handle. Seen in elections, candidates are more concerned with winning than advancing principle. SYSTEM THEORY=political system is a group of interrelated structures that allocate values for a society. Sees public policy as an output of the political system. By arrange settlement, demands are transformed into output (policies)

Public Policy Analysis: Policy analysis is principally concerned with describing and investigating how and why particular policies are
proposed, adopted, and implemented. . (Cocheran, Myer, Carr, Cayer) Thomas Dye said ---- Concerns the explanation rather than the presumption of a policy.

Stages of Policy Development:

Problem Identification Set the agenda Policy Formulation Policy Adoption Policy Implementation (Bureaucracy) Policy Evaluation

Major types of public policy: Public policies in the United States of America are generally divided into three categories:
Social Policy Economic Policy Foreign Policy

Social policy--laws, programs and rules that address issues such as welfare, health care, crime, environmental problems, abortion, and education. Economic Policy: Policies and programs establishing budgetary policy, including types and rates of taxation and types and amounts of spending. America's foreign policies are aimed at maintaining and promoting the favorable position and security of the United States in the international arena.

Community Development
Community: A social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage; locality inhabited by such a group; social, religious, occupational, or other group sharingcommon characteristics or interests and perc eived orperceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the largersociety within which it exists (usually preceded by the ): thebusiness commun ity; the community of scholars. Communities use capital to build economically and socially. Committees prosper when all 7 capitals work together. Not all communities possess all capitals.

Cornelia and Jan Flora (2008) developed the Community Capitals Framework as an approach to analyze how communities work. Based on their research to uncover characteristics of entrepreneurial and sustainable communities, they found that the communities most successful in supporting healthy sustainable community and economic development paid attention to all seven types of capital: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial and built. In addition to identifying the capitals and the role each plays in community economic development, this approach also focuses on the interaction among these seven capitals as well as how investments in one capital can build assets in others. The seven capitals include:

Natural capital: Those assets that abide in a location, including resources, amenities and natural beauty. Not created by humans
and most difficulty to manage. Ex. Water, soil, climate, terrain. Lack of access to natural capital stops other capital growth as well as population growth.

Cultural capital: Reflects the way people know the world and how to act within it. Cultural capital includes the dynamics of who
we know and feel comfortable with, what heritages are valued, collaboration across races, ethnicities, and generations, etc. Cultural capital influences what voices are heard and listened to, which voices have influence in what areas, and how creativity, innovation, and influence emerge and are nurtured. Cultural capital might include ethnic festivals, multi-lingual populations or a strong work ethic. HOW WE SEE THE WORLD.

Legacy Human capital: The skills and abilities of people, as well as the ability to access outside resources and bodies of knowledge in order
to increase understanding and to identify promising practices. Human capital also addresses leaderships ability to lead across differences, to focus on assets, to be inclusive and participatory, and to be proactive in shaping the future of the community or group. o Skills, abilities, educational levels, intelligence, health of individuals. Poverty is human capital bases low education, chronic health problems, poor nutrition, low sell esteem. o If you are limited and cant diversify the skills and abilities of people,,, chances of poverty increase o Ex: Farming community thats all they know to do flood happens poverty they have no other skills.

Social capital: Reflects the connections among people and organizations or the social glue to make things happen.

o Bonding social capital refers to those close ties that build community cohesion. o Bridging social capital involves weak ties that create and maintain bridges among organizations and communities.
Community interactions between indv and groups

Political capital: The ability to influence standards, rules, regulations and their enforcement. It reflects access to power and power
brokers, such as access to a local office of a member of Congress, access to local, county, state, or tribal government officials, or leverage with a regional company.

Financial capital: The financial resources available to invest in community capacity building, to underwrite businesses development,
to support civic and social entrepreneurship, and to accumulate wealth for future community development.

Built capital: The infrastructure that supports the community, such as telecommunications, industrial parks, main streets, water and
sewer systems, roads, etc. Built capital is often a focus of community development efforts. Pluralism & Elitism

The elite model focuses on the influence over policy exercised by powerful individuals or groups. This model contrasts with the pluralist model, which stresses that many groups and individuals have an influence in the American democratic system. Each of these groups interests and ideas must be taken into account. Both of these models picture these individuals and groups being active and influential across many policy areas.

Federalism
Federalism - System of government in which powers are divided and shared between different levels, e.g. national, state and local. A principle of government that defines the relationship between the central government at the national level and its constituent units at the regional, state, or local levels. Under this principle of government, power and authority is allocated between the national and local governmental units, such that each unit is delegated a sphere of power and authority only it can exercise, while other powers must be shared. The Constitution lists the legislative powers of the federal government. The Tenth Amendment protects the residual powers of the states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Intergovernmental Relations
The process of intergovernmental relations is federalism in action. It is the complex network of day-to-day interrelationships among the governments within a federal system. It is the political, fiscal, programmatic, and administrative processes by which higher units of government share revenues and other resources with lower units of government, generally accompanied by special conditions that the lower units must satisfy as prerequisites to receiving the assistance.

Supremacy Clause
Article VI, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution is known as the Supremacy Clause because it provides that the "Constitution, and the Laws of the United States shall be the supreme Law of the Land." It means that the federal government, in exercising any of the powers enumerated in the Constitution, must prevail over any conflicting or inconsistent state exercise of power.

The Full Faith and Credit Clause

Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitutionprovides that the various states must recognize legislative acts, public records, and judicial decisions of the other states within the United States. ENTERPRISE ZONES: designated geographical district in which residents business are legally entitled to receive special benefits from a government, established in economically depressed area to encourage companies to locate there. Sometimes referred to as empowerment zones Enumerated rights Unfunded mandate

New Federalism
This was President Richard Nixons attempt to return autonomy to the states while maintaining significant levels of federal funding. From 1972 onward, new federalism entailed establishing aggregate grant levels by formula, but allowing state and local governments substantial latitude in applying the funds in their own area.

The U.S. Constitution is the fundamental settlement defining federalism and also defining the permanent features of intergovernmental relations in the United States.

New, New Federalism

The Reagan administration imposed new policy objectives on intergovernmental arrangements. This was also calledin Nixon fashionnew federalism. This made sense, however, in that it was basically an extension of the Nixon initiatives. Reagan and his advisers viewed much activity by the national government, especially many expenditures on social programs, as wasteful and unnecessary. Thus they turned their attention to cutting federal grants, attempting to transfer functions back to the states and away from Washington. In 1986 the Reaganites also destroyed general revenue sharing, the unrestricted distribution of a portion of federal tax revenues to state governments

THE BUDGET AND ACCOUNTING ACT: of 191 created the Bureaus of the Budget and housed it within the Department of
Treasury under President Harding.

THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: mission is to serve the president of the United States in implementing his vision
across the executive brand, in 1970 under Nixon. It reports to the president and helps agencies across the federal government to implement the commitment and priorities of the president.

GRAMM RUDMAN-HOLLINGS ACT: officially the balanced budget and emergency deficit control act of 1985. The law provided for
automatic spending cuts to take effect if the president and congress failed to reach established targets. A revised version of the act was passed in 1987; which failed to result in reduced deficits. A 1990 revision of the act changed its focus from deficit reduction to spending control.

HISTORICAL POLICIES IMPACTING WELFARE PROGRAMS: there has been a debate over the impact of the welfare
expansion associated with the war on poverty. Many have maintained that public assistance expansion during this period decreased poverty by raising the incomes of the poor, while others have contended that welfare expansion increased poverty by discouraging the poor from working

WAR ON POVERTY: is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States president Lyndon b Johnson during his state of
the union address. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around 10%. The speech led the United States congress to pass the economic opportunity act.

FEDERALISM IN POLICY MAKING: federalism is a way of organizing a nation so that two or more levels of government have formal
authority over the same area and people. The concept of intergovernmental relations refers to the entire set of interactions among national, state and local govt in a federal system.

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT: of 1964 was the centerpiece of the War on Poverty which in turn was a major thrust of the great
society legislative agenda of the Lyndon Johnson administration. The eoa provided for adult education and loans to small businesses to attack the roots of unemployment and poverty. EOA was passed in August 1964 after being drafted the previous February by task force director who had connections to Kennedy administration.

DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY: is the base of superior-subordinate relationship, which involves assignment of duties; the delegation
first tries to define the task and duties to the subordinates. Granting of authority; subdivision of authority takes place when a superior divides share his authority with the subordinates. Creating and accountability; the delegation process does not end once powers are granted to the subordinate.

DISCRETIONARY POWER OF GOVERNMENT- the authority granted by the law to a head of state or government or high official
to act on his own discretion under certain conditions, for instance, in an emergency. Situation. Widely practiced in bourgeois states, the granting of discretionary power to state and administrative agencies, individuals officials, and judges is an expression of the crisis of bourgeois legality. For instance, in 1968 the Federal Republic of Germany adopted the soc-called emergency laws granting wide discretionary power s to the governments.

THE WELFARE REFORM ACT-welfare return is generally described as a governments attempt to change the social welfare policy of
the country. A main goal of these returns is to reduce the number of individuals or families dependent on government assistance and to assist the recipients in their efforts to become self-sufficient. In 1996, the welfare reform act was passed into law with the promise by the leaders of the country to end welfare as it had existed since its inception. A new era welfare benefits and provisions was on the horizon, and the welfare reform act was the catalyst needed to begin these much needed changes. One of the reforms under this act was the welfare to work, initiative , which required work in exchange for time limited financial assistance. Recipient of TANF or temporary assistance to needy. Families were required to work at least 20 hours per week, and the reform statute list 12 authorized activities accepted to meet this requirement.

THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT-the social security act was drafted during roosevelts first term by the presidens committee on economic
security, under Frances Perkins, and passed by congress as part of the new deal. The act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment and the burdens of widows and fatherless children,. By signing this act on august 14, 1935 , president roosevelts became the first president to advocate federal assistance for the elderly.

Evolving of Welfare Policy Elizabethan Poor Laws England Colonist brought them to US Work / poor houses Auction poor to families Churches / Community take care of you Rural to Urban migration Increased poverty in urban areas. The influx of people overwhelmend the job and housing market. There were not enough jobs or homes. Overcrowding, homelessness and unemployment grew. Black Friday Stock Market crash Changed peoples attitudes about the poor. Upper and middle class familes were now homeless, poor and hungry. Money in banks was not insured. People lost all money and homes. Tent cities cropped up. To solve this problem, President Roosevelt proposed and eventually signed the NEW DEAL New Deal President Roosevelt 1933-1936 Addressed Poverty New Era of Federalism (Cooperative Federalism replaced Dual Federalism) o NOTE: In the nineteenth century, dual federalism was the norm. Dual federalism conceptualized that national and state governments did not intervene in one anothers affairs because the functions and responsibilities of each were discrete things. o New Deal of the 1930s changed this view of federalism. In order to relieve the country of the throes of the Great Depression, the national and state governments had to work together in what came to be known as cooperative federalismthe combined effort of national, state, and local governments to solve common problems. Also, cooperative federalism includes the communication and joint problem-solving of state and local governments with other state or local governments. Policies enacted Fair Labor This banned child labor and set a minimum wage. Standards Act of 1938 Social security act This act established a system that provided oldage pensions for workers, survivors benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind and physically disabled. Right after taking office as president, fdr shut down all of the banks in the nation and congress passed the emergency banking act which gave the government the opportunity to inspect the health of all banks. The federal deposit insurance corporation (fdic) was formed by congress to insure deposits up to $5000. Federal housing administration fha -mortgage guarantee program This law was a long awaited triumph for the progressive-era social reformers. Mandate by federal government. All states must comply Although the original ssa did not cover farm and domestic workers, it did help millions of americans feel more secure. Most of these programs These measures reestablished american faith in banks. Americans were no longer scared that they would lose all of their savings in a bank failure. Government inspectors found that most banks were healthy, and two-thirds were allowed to open soon after. After reopening, deposits had exceeded withdrawals

Emergency banking act/federal deposit insurance corporation (fdic)

Federal housing act fha (1934)

Tennessee valley River basin development based on dams & hydroelectricity authority tva (1933) Federal savings Fslic -acts like fdic for s&ls & loan insurance corporation Caa Community action agencies job training for young men

Great Society (War on Poverty) 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson Creative Federalism

joint planning and decision-making including not just various levels of government, but also private-sector forces. Many of the federally-based, city-run programs, which bypassed state governments entirely, relied on the idea that federal grants could be used to shape state and local activities and social programs. Added to the new deal Addressed War on Poverty in a State of the union Signed Economic Opportunity Act in 1964 Eliminate poverty o Expand educational opportunities o Increase the safety net for the poor and unemployed o Tend to health and financial needs of the elderly Policies / Programs o Elementary Secondary Education Act of 1965 Provided funding to schools in areas where the majority of students lived in poverty Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, HUD, Job Training (JOB CORP was CAA), Head Start (Federally funded early childhood education )

W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, was a major proponent of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1965 Nixon (New Federalism) 1972 Tried to get rid of Bureau of Budget (unconstitutional) Renamed to Office of Management and Budget (1970) Starting in 1972, New Federalism changed the distribution of grants by allowing states and localities to do what they felt was most necessary with the federal grant money they were given, rather than forcing them to follow a federally-prescribed formula for its use. New Federalism sought to decentralize management at the federal level, and place responsibility back on the state and local governments for managing the social programs of their own constituencies. Regan (New New Federalism) 1985 Reduce dependence on Federal Government role in social welfare increase reliance on state and private sector. Reagan administration sought to do away with revenue sharing and national government expenditures on social programs altogether. Reagans budget cuts forced state and local governments to find new and creative ways to support social programs themselves. In 1981, the Economic Opportunity Act was rescinded and the Community Services Administration was abolished, under the Reagan Administration. In its place, came the Community Services Block Grant, which delegated responsibility for the administration of Community Action Agencies to the states. Family Support Act 1988 Weakened AFDC entitlement, shifted to mandatory work and training program called (JOBS) Job Opportunity and Basic Skills Training Program George HW Bush Same as Regan Clinton 1996 Welfare Reform Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act Instituted TANF (1997) which replaced AFDC(1935) put in motion Regans JOBs ACT George W Bush Poverty rate increased 11.3% in 2000 12.3% in 2006 Revised LBJs Elementary and Secondary School Act modified Added No Child Left Behind o Based on program in the State of Texas while he was Governor. Obama Health Care Reform Stimulus: Reinvestment and Recovery Act Increased Pell Funding Student Loan Rates Low