Chapter 17: Domestic Policy

Objectives:

1. Summarize the policymaking classification that explains the types of politics that may matter to whether and how government acts on any given issue.

   1. Four types of politics matter in the policymaking classification, each based on how most people perceive the distribution of monetary and other costs and benefits associated with the policy or program: majoritarian (everybody benefits, everybody pays), interest group (one small group pays, another small group benefits), client (almost everybody pays, one small group benefits), and entrepreneurial (almost everybody benefits, one small group pays).

2. Explain how America’s social welfare policies differ from those of many other modern democracies, and why some programs are politically protected while others are politically imperiled.

   1. America's social-welfare programs differ in four main ways. 1) Americans have taken a more restrictive view of who is entitled to or "deserves" to benefit from government assistance. 2) America was slower to embrace the need for the "welfare state" and, in turn, slower to adopt and enact relevant policies and programs. 3) State governments have played a large role in administering or co-funding many "national" social welfare measures like Medicaid. 4) Non-governmental organizations, both for-profit firms and nonprofit groups, secular as well as religious, have played a large role in administering Washington's social welfare initiatives.
   2. Political support for social-welfare programs depends primarily on who benefits directly or who is perceived to benefit directly. For example, Social Security and Medicare benefit almost all people who have reached a certain age, while the Food Stamps program--like the old AFDC program's successor, TANF--benefits only people with low incomes. The first type of social welfare program has no means test (they are available to everyone without regard to income), while the second type is means-tested (only people who fall below a certain income level are eligible). The first type represents majoritarian politics and is almost always politically protected; the second type represents client politics and is often politically imperiled. Medicaid, the federal-state health program, is means-tested, but it has as beneficiaries not only low-income persons but also the aged and the disabled. It mixes majoritarian and client politics, making it less politically sacrosanct than Social Security or Medicare, but more so than the Food Stamps program, TANF, and other means-tested programs.

3. Discuss how government regulations on certain big businesses have been imposed over the objections of those industries.

   1. Several reasons explain the passage of government regulations on industries, but the most important ones have to do with entrepreneurial politics. Starting in the 20th century, consumer advocates and environmental activists began to challenge big oil companies, auto manufacturing companies, drug companies, pesticides producers, and other corporations that once had, or were perceived to have, cozy relationships with government. Policy entrepreneurs outside government like Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson dramatized how existing public politics and programs helped the companies to profit but hurt most people in the pocketbook, jeopardized public health and safety, or both.
   2. By the 1970s and 1980s, policy entrepreneurs inside government, like those at the EPA (founded in 1970), began regulating the businesses even more closely than they had in the past. Although business regulation policy still generates much controversy and many debates over its cost-effectiveness, most people now favor diverse regulations on big oil companies and other large-scale businesses.

4. Explain why environmental policies are designed and enforced differently in America than in other industrialized nations, and the politics that drive environmental programs.

   1. The adversarial nature of American politics, as well as the system of federalism, complicates policy making in America, as illustrated by efforts to pass and enforce legislation on automobile emissions, clean air and water, and other environmental issues. While entrepreneurial politics figure prominently in environmental policy dynamics, including on an issue like protecting endangered species, there are several issues in each "box," like pollution from automobiles (majoritarian), acid rain (interest group), and agricultural pesticides (client politics). The same can be said for social welfare, business regulation, and other domestic policies and programs.

5. Discuss the difficulty with changing policies - domestic, economic, and foreign - or developing new programs in the United States today.

   1. The fundamental challenge without changing existing policies is the persistent public majority opposed to making either major or minor cuts to a program. Even the ostensibly far-reaching, bipartisan plans offered in recent sessions of Congress have been predicated on preserving (or expanding) all extant benefits to all present-day and near-term beneficiaries without raising taxes and without reducing services. For good or for ill, their majoritarian politics forbid any truly far-reaching reforms, and consequently, leave scarce resources for developing new programs.

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Policymaking Politics Revisited:

• Each policy has a cost and benefit.

  • costs can include taxes, regulations, or social stigma
  • benefits can include payments, subsidies, tax reduced, or heightened prestige

• People differ in their beliefs about who gets a benefit and who pays a cost

  • Those beliefs are about the legitimacy of various groups

• Perceived costs and benefits can be distributed or concentrated

  • Majoritarian:
  • Make appeals to large segments of voters, hope to find a majority
  • Interest Groups:
  • Proposed policy will confer small groups of people, and impose costs on another small group.
  • Client:
  • Small groups will benefit but everyone pays the cost. Because the costs are so widely distributed, people will be indifferent to the costs.
  • Entrepreneurial:
  • Society as a whole benefits, but the cost is imposed on a small segment of society

  

Social Welfare Policy

• Preamble gives a reason for establishing the national government is a desire to “promote the general Welfare“
• Five major steps towards today’s social welfare policies an programs were taken during the Great Depression
  • emergency measures were adopted
  • FDR created the Cabinet Committee on Economic Security to consider long-term policies
  • The Cabinet called for two programs: insurance program and assistance program
  • The Social Security Act became a cornerstone of Roosevelt’s New Deal
  • Medicare was a cornerstone of Johnson’s Great Society
• Two kinds of social welfare programs:
  • those that benefit most people: ex, Social Security and Medicare
  • no means test: available to everyone without regard to income
  • example of majoritarian politics
  • those that help only a small number of people: ex, TANF, SNAP, Food Stamps
  • means tested: you must fall below a certain income level to enjoy them
  • example of client politics

Business Regulation Policy

• The relationship of wealth and power
  • One view: Economic power dominates political power.
  • Wealth can buy political power.
  • Politicians and business people have similar backgrounds and, thus,
    ideologies.
  • Another view: political power is a threat to a market economy.
  • Politicians will side with the nonbusiness majority in order to increase votes.
  • Politicians will blame corporate chiefs for war, inflation, unemployment, and pollution.
  • Corporations will be taxed excessively to pay for popular social programs.
  • Neither extreme is correct; business-government relationships depend on many things.

Environmental Policy

• Environmental policy is shaped by unique features of U.S. politics.
  • Adversarial political culture
  • Rules are often uniform nationally (for instance, auto emissions)
  • Many rules, strict deadlines, and expensive technologies required
  • Government and business leaders often conflict with
    one another.
• In the United States, implementing environmental policy depends heavily on states.
  • Federal government set standards, but states choose how to
    achieve them.
  • Local politics influences decision making.
• Why is a coherent environmental policy so difficult to formulate and put into effect?
  • Many environmental problems are not clear cut, and goals are often unclear
  • Means of achieving goals (command and control strategies) are complicated.
  • Local circumstances, technological problems, and economic costs

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