GOV FINAL FLASHCARDS

Agenda

Set of issues and policies laid out by ideological or political groups as well as topics under discussion by a governmental executive.

Al-Qaeda

A network of Islamic terrorist organizations, led by Osama bin Laden, that carried out the attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

Appeasement

A policy of making concessions to an aggressor in the hopes of avoiding war; the process of giving in to aggression in order to avoid war.

Biennial

Takes place every two years.

Bilateral treaty

A treaty created between two nations.

Bill of Rights

First 10 amendments to the constitution which largely define personal rights and liberties; Anti-Federalists ensured that it would protect individuals from government interference and possible tyranny; it was drafted by a group led by James Madison, where it consisted of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed the American Civil Rights.

Business cycles

Fluctuations between periods of economic growth and recession, or periods of boom and bust.

Capitalism

An economic system in which individuals own and operate the majority of businesses that provide goods and services; competition, supply, and demand determine which goods and services are produced, how they are produced, and how they are distributed; examples

Civil liberties

Areas of personal freedom constitutionally protected from government interference; constitutional freedoms guaranteed to all citizens.

Cold War

Conflict between the US and Soviet Union; nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years; 200 million died at the hands of communists; the period of tension between the communist walls in the west that lasted from 1947 to 1991; post World War II era.

Collective Security

Article 10 Provision of the League charter states if one country was involved in a confrontation, other nations would support it; agreements between countries for mutual defense and to discourage aggression; the idea that an attack on one country is an attack on all countries; type of security that countries take with conjunction of group; refers to the development of alliances and agreements among a group of nations that pledge to aid one another in fending off or confronting security threats.

Communism

A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

Containment

U.S. foreign policy adopted by President Harry Truman in the late 1940s, where the United States tried to stop the spread of communism by creating alliances and helping weak countries to resist Soviet advances; U.S policy of opposing soviet expansion and communist revolutions around the world with military forces, economic assistance and political influence; a policy designed to curtail the political and military expansion of a hostile power.

Deregulation

Policy promoting cutbacks in the amount of federal regulation in specific areas of economic activity; a reduction in market controls in favor of market based competition.

Détente

Policy of reducing Cold War tensions was adopted by the United States during the Presidency of Richard Nixon; the improvement in relations that occurred between the us and the soviets during the 1970s.

Discount rate

The rate of interest at which the federal reserve board loans money to member banks; what the Federal Government charges banks for money.

Electoral College

Group selected by the states to elect the President and Vice-President; each state's number of electors = number of its senators and representatives in Congress.

Enumerated powers

The powers of the government specifically granted in article 1 section 8 of the constitution; the powers explicitly given to Congress in the Constitution.

Executive order

A rule or regulation issued by the president that has the effect and formal status of legislation or law.

Federal Reserve System

The country's central banking system, which is responsible for the nation's monetary policy by regulating the supply of money and interest rates; a system of 12 Federal Reserve banks that facilitates exchanges of cash, checks, and credit; regulates member banks; and uses monetary policies to fight inflation and deflation.

Fiscal Policy

The government's use of taxing, monetary, and spending powers to manipulate the economy; deliberate use of national government taxing and spending policies to maintain economic stability.

Free exercise clause

2nd clause, 1st amendment, prohibits government from interfering with a persons right to exercise their religion.

Grand Strategy

An overarching vision that defines and guides a nation's foreign policy; an overarching concept that guides how nations employ all of the instruments of national power to shape world events and achieve specific national security objectives.

Gross Domestic Product

The total value of goods and services produced within the borders of a country during a specific time period, usually one year.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Where atomic bombs landed/detonated in Japanese cities in WW II.

Human rights

Liberties that every human being has that government and organization cannot take from them; the basic rights to which all people are entitled as human beings.

Inflation

Continuous rise in the price of goods and services.

Isolationism

Avoidance of involvement in the affairs of other nations; policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations (particularly European affairs).

Laissez-faire capitalism

Economic system where the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for profit with minimal or no government interference.

Liberty

Freedom from government control.

Majority party

In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the political party to which more than half the members belong.

Medicaid

A federal and state-financed operated program providing medical services to low-income people.

Medicare

National Health Insurance program for the elderly and disabled (65 or older); created by LBJ.

Military-industrial complex

That network of large defense manufacturers and government defense leaders who purchase and use the best possible war materiel, always trying to stay on top of technological changes; the network of political and financial relations formed by defense industries, the United States armed forces, and congress; when Eisenhower first coined this phrase in 1961 in his farewell address and warned America against it in his last State of the Union Address, he feared the combined lobbying efforts of armed services and industries contracted with the military would lead to excessive congressional spending.

Minority party

In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the political party where fewer than half the members belong.

Monetary Policy

A form of government where the economies money supply and interest rates are controlled; efforts to regulate the economy through the manipulation of the supply of money and credit, most powerful in the U.S. is the Federal Reserve Board; government policy attempts to manage the economy by controlling the money supply and interest rates.

Moralism

The policy of emphasizing morality in foreign affairs.

Multilateralism

A philosophy that encourages individual nations to work together to solve international problems; foreign policy encourages involvement of several nation-states in coordinated action; usually in relation to a common adversary with terms and conditions specified in a multi-country treaty (NATO).

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

A doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.

Natural law

God's or nature's law that defines right from wrong and is higher than human law; a doctrine that says society should be governed by certain ethical principals that is part of nature and as such can be understood by reason.

No Child Left Behind

U.S. Act of Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; includes Title I Provisions applying to disadvantaged students.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

North America, Western Europe and transmission belt across the pacific, created to defend west Europe from the soviet red army, it was essential that the sea-lane of transportation was intact; alliance of nations agreeing to band together in event of war and to support and protect each nation involved in 1949.

Political parties

Organized groups that attempt to influence the government by electing their members to important government offices; an organized group with shared goals and ideas that join together to run candidates for office and exercise political and electoral power.

Power

The ability to get others to do that which they would not normally do otherwise; influence over a government's leadership, organization, or policies.

Public Policy

An intentional course of action or inaction followed by government in dealing with some problem or matter of concern; choice government makes in response to a political issue.

Policy

Course of action taken with regard to some problem.

Recession

Period of declining real GDP, accompanied by lower real income and higher unemployment; an economic down turn characterized by a lowering of production and increase in unemployment typically lasting 15 to 18 months.

Redistribution

A policy whose objective is to tax or spend in such a way as to reduce the disparities of wealth between the lowest and the highest income brackets.

Republic

Government rooted in the consent of the governed, by representatives put in power of the people; form of government in which the people select representatives to govern them and make laws; a form of government in which citizens choose their leaders by voting.

16th Amendment

Amendment to US Constitution authorizing the federal income tax.

Socialism

A system in which society, usually in the form of the government, owns and controls the means of production.

Supply-side economics

An economic philosophy that holds that sharply cutting taxes will increase the incentive people have to work, save, and invest; greater investments will lead to more jobs, a more productive economy, and more tax revenues for the government.

Tariffs

Taxes on imported goods.

Unilateralism

The doctrine that nations should conduct their foreign affairs individualistically without the advice or involvement of other nations.

Veto

Power of the president to reject bills passed by both houses of congress.

Warsaw Pact

An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations in 1955; this was in response to the NATO.

President of the United States during the Iranian hostage crisis

Jimmy Carter

Reform Party candidate who garnered 19% of the popular vote in the 1992 presidential election

Ross Perot

Famous writer who made the statement, “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting”

Mark Twain

President of the United States who ordered the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Harry Truman

British Prime Minister during most of World War II

Winston Churchill

Nickname of the individual credited for leaking White House secrets to the media during the Watergate affair

Deep Throat

First chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

John Jay

President who signed the bill creating the Environmental Protection Agency

Richard Nixon

Proclamation launching construction of the transcontinental railroad signed by this president

Abraham Lincoln

First presidential election with clear party candidates was held between these two individuals

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, 1800

The four presidents who were assassinated by a gun while serving in office

Abraham Lincoln; James A. Garfield; William McKinley; John F. Kennedy

Media giant who some accuse of pushing the U.S. into the Spanish-American War

William Hearst (Yellow Journalism)

First Secretary of Defense for the United States

James Forrestal

Individual with approximately half the $5M in fines levied by the FCC since 1990

Howard Stern

Name given to democrats who supported the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan

Reagan Democrats

Influential British economist who advocated for government intervention during economic slowdowns

John Keynes

Life expectancy in 1900

47 years

Name of the first federal education program created to establish national standards (voluntary)

Goals 2000

Percent of the Senate that must vote in favor of a treaty

2/3 or 67%

Food stamp cost in 1974

$2.8B

Food stamp cost in 2012

$47 billion

Percentage increase in volume of student loans between 1994 and 2001

66%

The amount of the average monthly Social Security check in 2016

$1300

Percent of Americans collecting Social Security

16%

Number of FDR’s U.S. Supreme Court justice nominees serving on the bench when he died

8 out of 9

Japanese cities where the atomic bomb was detonated in WW II

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The cost of Medicaid for 2016, as compared to 2007

$400 billion in 2007 and $581 billion in 2016

The cost of Medicare in 2016, as compared to 2007

$340 billion in 2007 and $561.5 billion in 2016

Total cost of public education (elementary and secondary) in 2018

Approx. $720 billion

Date that Japan formally surrendered to end World War II

September 2, 1945

Year of the first televised presidential election debate

1960 (JFK vs Nixon)

Estimated cost of the 11 September 2001 attack by 2004

$1 trillion

Year the current two-party system began its domination

1860

Percent of federal budget dedicated to human resources in 2010

67%

Percent of federal budget dedicated to national defense in 2010

19%

Year the War Powers Act was passed by Congress

1973

Size of military manpower reduction between 1987 and 2002

800,000

Global agreement creating World Bank and International Monetary Fund

Bretton Woods System

Year the Federal Communications Commission was created

1934

Years that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) existed

1947–1995

World Trade Organization grew out of this trade organization

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

Percent of stock market growth between 1990 and 1999

300%

Date each year that a new fiscal federal budget goes into effect

October 1st

Normal length of a term for serving in the US Senate

6 years