Policy final

Competing values that have influenced education policy

Equality of opportunity:

• Who has access to education?

• Public vs private education

Liberal vs vocational eduaction:

• What should be taught in schools?

Standardized testing as a way to evaluate students/schools

Decentralized vs centralized ciriculums

Three questions motivating education policy

• Who should get educated? (access to schooling)

• What will the education entail? (liberal vs vocational)

• Who will control the education system? (Public vs private)

Characteristics of merit based systems

Schools which report higher test scores are allocated more funding and higher salaries to teachers.

Pro: offers monetary incentives to achieve success in the classroom

Con: Schools which perform worse often need funds more, incentivize cheating

Liberal vs vocational training

Desribes what students are learning. Liberal education advocates for traditional training of students in the classics as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic to provide full development of students. Vocational training emphasizes the development of useful skills that transfer directly into specific ocupational opportunities.

Arguments for and against standardized testing

Ideas behind school choice programs

Some belive that no school choice creates a monopoly around education, removing incentives to improve the quality of education children recieve; school choice can alleviate that

School choice programs: allow parents to send children to any public school in a particular area, only among public schools

School vouchers: Allows parents to send children to private schools through government funded vouchers to relieving their financial burden; controversy around seperation of church and state

Charter schools: Government funded yet independent schools which with fewer regulations, allowing schools to have a particular focus

Premium

Monthly fee that is paid to keep a health insurance plan active

Deductible

A fixed dollar threshold that a patient does not need to pay more than; a member pays all their costs until the deductible is hit, then the rest is covered by insurance

Co-payment vs co-insurance

A co-copayment is a fixed dollar amount that a member has to pay for certain services (ex. 25$ for every checkup at the doctor); co-insurance is the percantage of the bill that a member must pay. This is not a fixed dollar amount and will cost more depending on the procedure

Why healthcare policies are so expensive

Specialized healthcare professionals demand high wages, access to new medical technologies and medications is very expensive. People have very diverse needs and healthcare policy must be able to cover care for these needs. Additionally, people want the best care as quickly as possible, while still being able to afford it

Examples of preventitive measures

Access to clean air and water, healthy diets, vaccinations, routine screenign for serious diseases, health care education (basically anything that will lower risk of health complications that need to be cured/treated)

Four models of healthcare provision

National health services model (UK)

• All citizens are garunteed access to most curative care services through a system paid for and administered directly by the government

Single payer model (Canada)

• Garuntees all citizens access to health care via a single program in which almost all funds come from the government but care is provided privately

Mandatory national health insurance (Germany)

• Government garuntees all citizens access to care but with multiple payers and multiple providers

Market maximized-out of pocket (US)

• The government provides no garuntee of access through either public hospitals or mandatory health insurance

Gatekeeper systems

A system in which patients must see a general practitioner and get a referral before going to see a specialist. Here, the general practitioner can can control costs by maing the appropriate referral or no referral when a specialist is not needed

Risk-pooling vs actuarial fairness

Actuarial fairness calls for people to be grouped by risk factors which allows healthy in low-risk occupations to join health insurance plans with other similar people. High-risk individuals are forced to pay higher premiums due to the greater chance that they will need care. Risk-pooling calls for solidarity of citizens based on a recognition that everyone is at risk of needign care becaused of chronic illness or accidents. Risk is pooled across a large body of low and high risk people to get maximal coverage at minimal cost.

Broad conditions impacting immigration patterns

Labor shortages, demographic change, security concerns, global conflicts (I need to do more on this one)

Legal vs illegal immigration

Legal immigration consists mostly of family reunification and employment based immigration, where individuals are admitted into countries due to their specialized skills (front door). Illegal immigration is consists mostly of individuals overstaying visas and crossing over international borders without approval (back door).

Asylum seekers vs refugees

Asylum seekers are individuals who are already present in a country where refuge is sought, whereas refugees are found outside of their home country, typically in refugee camps, where they are interviewed by immigration officials before being given entry permits

Push and pull factor

Push factors are factors that influence individuals to emigrate from their home countries (overpopulation, poverty, unemployment, natural disasters, and war), whereas pull factors refer to a countries characteristics that make it attractive to immigrants (existing family ties, job opportunities, and the avaliability of public services and social welfare benifits)

Policy instruments for regulating legal immigration and humanitarian intervention

Preference system: Allocates a certain number of visas for categories of immigrants per year (Certain skills like medical professionals may be prioritized over other)

Pre-entry controls: Controls to prevent asylum seekers from entering a country and recieving resident status (sanctions against airlines for tranporting individuals who lack legal documents, stricter visa requirements for citizens of countries known for high asylum seeker rates, international zones at airports to detain undocumented foreigners, or the streamlining of asylum procedures)

Post Entry Controls: Attempts to contro the rights and activities of asylum applicants who are already within the country’s borders (limiting access to social welfare, denying work permits, computerized registration systems to keep track of asylum speakers)

Unauthorized controls: Internal deportation programs

Integrationist vs assimilationist policies

Intergrationsist policies require immigrants to follow all the rules of the country, but do not adopt the culture (this can be the case of many gulf states where they do not want immigrants to stay), whereas assimilationist policies aim for immigrants to slowly adopt the culture of the new country (by the third generation)

Cultural factors influencing immigration policies

Historical experiences with immigration: Countries with longer histories of immigration and larger immigrant populations will be more welcome to immigration

Liberal Political values: Stricter immigration policies often require rollback of civil and human rights for noncitizens, resulting in many industrialized countries to reject more restrictive reform

Public opinion: Far more restrictionist than views held by political parties or government officials

Surplus

Occurs when a government’s total revenue exceed its total spending

Deficit

Occurs when a government’s total spending exceed its total revenue

Bonds

Loans made to government agencies in exchange for a set interest rate payment; higher interest rates with a budget deficit

How and from where the government borrows money

Banks: Similar to a singler person

Government Bonds: Can be bought by banks, investment firms, foreign governments, businesses, and private citizens

Keynesian Theory

No fiscal policy is universially desirable under all circumstances; government spending can mellow out highs and ows, pull back spending during growth to control inflation and increase spending durign loss to prevent suffering

Suggested deficit and debt levels

Governments should keep annual deficits to 3% of GDP

Institutional factors influencing fiscal policy

Found on page 167

Contradiction in public opinion about fiscal policy

Many citizens in industrialized countries support increased government spending, however oppose tax increases and think that taxes should be cut

The harms of air pollution

Serious health problems in humans, harm to animal and plant life, ozone layer depletion (increased UV intesity), creation of smog, increased greenhouse gases (global warming)

Possible goals of environmental policy instruments

Preventing additional envrionmental contamination from occuring (regulating automobile emission standards) and eliminating existing contamination (policy of planting forests to absorb greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere

Types of direct environmental regulation

Framework policies: allow for latitude in their interpretation and implementation

Detailed laws: Little discretion in application

Examples of incentive or economic-based instruments

Tax breaks for corporations who implement pollution controls, pollution charges or taxes, tradeable discharge permits, and deposit-refnd systems

Characteristics of voluntary agreements

Usually developed between government and industry or industry-industry, not legally binding, have mutually agreed upon goals and target dates

Distribution of authority for handling environmental policy in the USA

Environmental policy is handled by a variety of offices at the federal level; the EPA, Congress, SCOTUS, executive branch detail framework and regulation

Three objectives behind tax policy

Generating needed revenues, generating as little discontent as possible, and encouraging some behaviors why decentivizing others

tax avoidance vs tax evasion

Tax avoidance is the act of managing money in a way that minimizes tax liability (writeoffs, donations), whereas tax evasion is the illegal refusal to pay taxes owed under the law

Progressive vs regressive systems

Progressive tax systems require the wealthy to pay a higher percentage of their wealth in taxes than the poor, whereas a regressive system forces the poor to pay a higher percentage in taxes than the rich (ex flat-rate taxes regardless of income)

Advantages and disadvantages between direct and indirect taxes

Direct: They are major potential instrument for redistribution because they are calculated based on income, however they can be harder to collect than income taxes (potential for underestimate of income)

Indirect: This method makes up a mejority of government revenue as they are very easy to collect, however they are often criticized as regressive as most of them are flat taxes (sales tax, liquor tax)

Forms of tax expenditures and how they’re used by governments

Tax credits: Charitable donations can generate tax credits to promote giving

Tax deductions: Donations can be used to deduct one’s listed income

These are used as they can subsidize certain activities without the government needing to collect taxes and then pay the relevant individuals. It can also build support for tax policy

Tax protests and tax revolts

Boston Tea Party (idk bro)