This week, discuss how your target population would benefit from changes to a social policy.
Here are some ideas to get you started. Choose one to respond to for the discussion this week.
What changes to this social policy would you like to see? In what ways would that improve the lives of your oppressed population?
Share how you anticipate the life of a specific person or family would be improved as a result of the changed social policy. What might the ripple effect be of this improvement?
Explain how your culture, background, and/or experience shapes your thinking about the benefits of social policy change. Offer some specific examples.
Explain which of this week’s concepts, resources, or activities is of most interest to you and your professional development. Offer some specific examples.
PLEASE ANSWER TO PEER MIKE?
Explain which of this week’s concepts, resources, or activities is of most interest to you and your professional development. Offer some specific examples.
I learned more than expected reading about economic policy and how budgets are produced in chapter 5. The system we have is very complex and I have found it confusing and overwhelming in the past. way in which this information was laid out helped me develop a mental image of how things work. I did not realize that budgets requests were sent to the president’s office who then develops an overall budget proposal for congress to consider (Rinfret, 2021-12-24, p. 137). I think this is a great way for the president to keep his finger on the pulse of the economic needs / desires of the related programs and also allows him to get the first stab at advocating for the budgetary needs he finds most important. I always knew the president had the ability to veto a bill and send it back, but how his office’s input was incorporated to start with was something I was unaware of, but knowing this made me curious about the sway a president has on the survival of programs.
According to Kasdin and McCann (2022), using OMB budget data to and the Program Assessment Rating Tool verses the President’s Budget request, it is clear the President does have a sway on which programs survive and which are terminated. This is a great deal of power for one person and drives home the importance of having a president who has a servant mentality rather than one who is driven by personal aspirations.
I also did not realize that our non-defense discretionary spending only accounted for 14 percent of the total budget, but given the interest on our loans as a country also has to be paid (non-discretionary spending), it is humbling to think of what sacrifices have to be made so we do not default on loans (Rinfret, 2021-12-24, p. 118). Those sacrifices will be even greater if we are to beginning the process of paying down our dept. When considering all of the competing interests hoping to receive some of these leftover funds, I can now better understand how complicated and delicate the back-room negotiation processes are when trying to hammer out budgetary agreements.
References
Kasdin, S., & McCann, A. (2022). What drives program terminations for the federal government? Public Budgeting & Finance, 42(1), 28–44. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1111/pbaf.12288
Rinfret, S. R., Scheberle, D., Pautz, M. C. (2021-12-24). Public Policy: A Concise Introduction, 2nd Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf 10.4.1]. Retrieved from vbk://9781071835180
