The Agenda and Legislation

Not all issues involve dramatic triggering events: disability rights

Interest Groups

• 501(c)(3) and (c)(4)

Legislative Research

· GovTrack

· Thomas

· Lexis-Nexis

· CQ Electronic Library

· Other sources

· US Code

· Citing US Code

Bill Drafting

· An example of legislative language: Climate Change Bill

· Types of measures

· Senate Legislative Counsel

· House Legislative Counsel

Rules

· Senate Rules

· House Rules

Do They Read The Bills? No.

· The PATRIOT Act.

Best (Stinky) Practice

This story is not from The Onion. It is a real story from WTOG in Tampa:

Believe in the power of poop. It’s an initiative being pushed by one South Florida energy company, which is now on the edge of being approved in Fort Lauderdale to help generate home electricity.

Power Green Energy, a Pompano Beach start-up hoping to turn sludge from waste-water treatment plants into renewable electricity for the state, is awaiting word today from the Fort Lauderdale City Commission to approve a rezoning request that would implement the system by the middle of next year. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that the company has received the City Commission’s tentative approval to initiate operations that would feed into Florida Power & Light Co.’s power-lines by mid-2012.

The Electric Car: An Example of the Issue-Attention Cycle

This great film documents the changes that occurred in the auto industry and when people stop caring about finding alternative energy for cars and lawmakers' focus shifted.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Putting Agendas on the Agenda

The Issue-Attention Cycle

1. The pre-problem stage

• DDT
• Oil & oysters
• Cigarettes

2. Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm

• Silent Spring (at 7:05)
• The Cuyahoga River catches fire

3. Realizing the cost of significant progress

• Historical tables

4. Gradual decline of intense public interest
5. The post-problem stage

• EPA organization chart
• State agencies
• Organizations
• Companies

Best Practices in Our Backyard

The Los Angeles Daily News reports:

Dialing a phone to report a pothole is so 2005.

These days, tech-savvy cities offer residents smartphone apps to document quality-of-life troubles.

If you live in San Jose, Glendale or certain parts of Los Angeles, you can point your camera phone at your neighborhood problem, snap a picture, type a description and hit send. The app forwards your GPS coordinates, along with the picture and description, to a city official who can arrange a fix.

It's faster, easier and -- ideally -- cheaper than dialing.

Los Angeles as a whole is a little slow in embracing service via smartphone apps. The city encourages residents to call its 311 request system to report problems, but budget cuts have slashed 311 line staffing. It's gone from 24/7 operation to one that operates only from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. weekdays - making it harder for residents to file complaints at their own convenience.

That makes the smartphone app all the more useful.

So far, two councilmen -- Paul Krekorian and Eric Garcetti* -- have embraced service-by-app options. Constituents in those East Valley and Hollywood area districts can upload photos directly to the council staff, who then refer the service requests to the right departments.

The Reseda Neighborhood Council is also experimenting with an app called CitySourced, which is used by Garcetti's office and the cities of San Jose and Glendale.

*Garcetti's communications director is CMC alum and Harvard MPP Julie Wong.

Federalism and Unanticipated Consequences

Phil Galewitz writes at Kaiser Health News:

Autism treatment advocates have won one legislative battle after another since 2007, most recently in California, which sent a bill to the governor this month mandating that insurers cover the disorder. Now more than half the states have such requirements, but that success could be in jeopardy as federal officials set new national standards for health coverage.

Insurers and employers argue that the laws increase health costs because treatment is often expensive and lasts years. But the advocates have prevailed by using federal data showing a growing number of children with the disorder, compelling stories about middle-class families struggling to afford treatment and testimony from celebrity parents of children with autism, including former pro football stars Dan Marino and Doug Flutie.

However, a provision in the 2010 health overhaul law gives the federal government authority to define "benefits" that will be offered on the health insurance exchanges, or marketplaces, to individuals and small businesses starting in 2014. If states mandate a benefit, but it isn’t on the federal list, the states would be responsible for the cost of the coverage.

As a result, autism benefits and dozens of other state-required benefits, covering services and conditions such as infertility, acupuncture and chiropractic care, could be at risk. By the end of September, the Institute of Medicine is scheduled to recommend criteria the Department of Health and Human Services should use in determining the essential benefits package. HHS is expected to announce its decision by the end of the year.

Coming to a theater near you

Not much to do with public policy, but fun to check out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EL5Atp_vF0

Nudge, Nudge

More Writing Tips

• For endnotes, be sure to use Arabic numerals, not lower-case Romans (even though they are a default option in Word).
• Use shortened citations for subsequent references.
• Introduce your quotations.
• Watch out for shifts in tense. You may say “Kamarck said” or “Kamarck says” but stay with one tense or the other. Also see SW31-32.
• Avoid dangling modifiers. Also see SW13-14

Researching Best Practices and other Policy Information

• Honnold databases
• Scholarly literature and statistics
• Bureaucracy and domestic public policy
• Federalism and state government

Generic Vulnerabilities

• Afghanistan and management capacity
• Postal Service and government enterprise
• Hurricanes and moral hazard

Nudge, Nudge

• iNcentives
• Understand mappings
• Defaults
• Give feedback
• Expect error
• Structure complex choices

Problems with nudges

• Nudges often require or become shoves
• Evidence is limited at best

Ethical Analysis

• Cost-benefit analysis and risk-benefit analysis
• Thank you for smoking.
• What is the value of a human life?

A (Flawed) Example of the Vitality of Mythical Numbers

Over the summer, The Heritage Foundation tried to debunk the U.S. Census Buerau's poverty numbers. Recently, the Census Buerau reported that 46.2 million Americans lived in poverty in 2010. Heritage's Robert Rector argues that the Census Buerau's measurement is inaccurate because families aren't in poverty if they own "conveniences" such as fans and coffee makers. Here's an excerpt:

But what does it mean to be “poor” in America? What is poverty?

For most U.S. residents, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide yourself and your family with reasonable shelter, nutritious food and clothing....

Fortunately, such images have little or nothing to do with the actual living conditions of most of the more than 40 million Americans defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau...

A microwave, refrigerator, oven and stove were all in the kitchen of the average poor household. Other conveniences included clothes washer and dryer, ceiling fans, cordless phone and coffee maker...

Should a family that lives this way be considered poor? The overwhelming answer from the public is no.

Melissa Boteach of the Center for American Progress responded:

First, the electronic devices that Heritage cites are everyday necessities today. Who has iceboxes anymore? Who doesn’t need a cell phone to find a job or keep one?...

Indeed, the rising cost of paying for electricity for the very appliances that Heritage thinks are indicators of luxury are eating a bigger and bigger hole into the pockets of the poor. Today struggling families are spending at least 15 percent of their household budget to pay their electric bills, and the poorest of the poor shell out an even higher percentage of their income for this basic expense...

To avoid a real discussion of these issues, the Heritage Foundation craftily creates indexes that rank households on skewed measures of “amenities” that suggest that no further federal action is needed to buoy the standard of living of poor and working-class families. Such indexes are heartless and foolish. Heartless because they ignore the fact that it takes much more than a few appliances to support a family. And foolish because they lend credence to the calls for cutting the supports that research has shown are necessary for every child to become a healthy and productive adult.

Boteach also thinks that the poverty index is inadequate, but because it has only been indexed to inflation.

Even the Wall Street Journal thinks that Heritage's report is misleading:

The report notes that 99.9% of U.S. households have a refrigerator and 98.7% have a television. But cheap appliances from Wal-Mart or second-hand ones from Goodwill do not lift people out of poverty. And televisions only make the poor more aware of what they don't have.

Poverty deniers also like to attack the official poverty rate by noting that today's poor enjoy conveniences that were affordable only to the rich in generations past. Toilet paper was once a luxury. Is anyone with continuous access to a continuous roll not to be counted as poor?

Warren Buffett's Secretary

Look carefully at this parody video and you may see a familiar face:

Corporate Taxes

A note from an old friend (Jim Pinkerton) about his partnership with Elaine Kamarck (see syllabus).

The RATE Coalition http://ratecoalition.com/ is a new bipartisan group aimed at reducing the US corporate income tax rate. I am the Republican co-chair, and Dr. Elaine Kamarck, an alum of the Clinton-Gore White House who now teaches at the Kennedy School, is the Democratic co-chair.

We all realize that Washington is profoundly polarized on a great many issues, but Elaine and I also believe in the power of effective compromise based on good ideas. And one such idea, with substantial support on both sides of the aisle, is reducing the corporate income tax rate, so that US companies can be more competitive in the world marketplace, and thus keep more jobs and revenues here in the US. We note that many top Democrats, as well as many top Republicans, have expressed support for some sort of rate-lowering/base-broadening approach.

The US today has the second-highest corporate tax rate among the 34 nations of the OECD. We believe that this high rate is damaging to American competitiveness What makes the RATE Coalition unique is that the members of the RATE Coalition are willing to put on the table, the issue of tax loopholes/shelters/expenditures. In other words, in its emphasis on seeing a lowering of the corporate tax rate, the RATE Coalition is willing to say goodbye to favored breaks, because a lower rate is more important.

We believe that such willingness could prove to be the key to actually hammering out an effective solution, even amidst the current gridlock.

Obama getting creative on budget cuts

It's tough to avoid massive entitlement cuts and slash trillions from the budget at the same time without getting at least a little bit creative--and that's just what President Obama is trying to do in his new deficit proposal.

With his approval ratings tanking faster than my beloved Chicago Bears, it might not be such a terrible idea for the President to brush up on his Bardach and start thinking outside the budget box.

Most of the President's $3 trillion deficit proposal remains similar to the ideas floated over the summer; however, as Brad Plumer of the Washington Post observes, there are a few interesting ideas in the fine print.

Among them: selling off 12,000 "excess" federal properties (I hope nobody was looking to intern at La Verne Pacific Southwest Research Station) and scaling back federal flood insurance, to the tune of $4 billion dollars each.

Of course, if Congress passes on the White House plan, perhaps the President can take a page from the American public, and simply cut the 51% of government that is apparently going to waste. Talk about best practice.

Evidence, Analysis, and Best Practices

From CBO blog:

Higher-income groups earn a disproportionate share of pretax income and pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes. In 2007, the highest quintile earned 56 percent of pretax income and paid 69 percent of federal taxes, while the top 1 percent of households earned 19 percent of income and paid 28 percent of taxes. In all other quintiles, the share of federal taxes was less than the income share. The bottom quintile earned 4 percent of income and paid less than 1 percent of taxes, while the middle quintile earned 13 percent of income and paid 9 percent of taxes.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

From CBO testimony, 9/13/11

Assumptions and re-framing. The case of mandatory minimums (sorry for poor video):

Assembling evidence about best practices:

• Scholarly literature and statistics
• Federalism
• Bureaucracy and public policy

Bachmann and Gardasil

Michele Bachmann is continuing her crusade against Rick Perry's HPV vaccine decision. This morning, her campaign released a video in which she equates Perry's HPV vaccine policy to "Obamacare" -- even labeling it "Perrycare."

In the video, titled, "Fighting Crony Capitalism and the Abuse of Executive Power," Bachmann says she opposes "any governor or president who mandates a family’s health care choices and in turn violates the rights of parents on these issues."

TPM points out the low-budget video quality, and notes that Bachmann does not mention her claim that Gardasil causes mental retardation.

Take a look:

Driver Licenses and Unanticipated Consequences

The Los Angeles Times reports:

For more than a decade, California and other states have kept their newest teen drivers on a tight leash, restricting the hours when they can get behind the wheel and whom they can bring along as passengers. Public officials were confident that their get-tough policies were saving lives.

Now, though, a nationwide analysis of crash data suggests that the restrictions may have backfired: While the number of fatal crashes among 16- and 17-year-old drivers has fallen, deadly accidents among 18-to-19-year-olds have risen by an almost equal amount. In effect, experts say, the programs that dole out driving privileges in stages, however well-intentioned, have merely shifted the ranks of inexperienced drivers from younger to older teens.

"The unintended consequences of these laws have not been well-examined," said Mike Males, a senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, who was not involved in the study, published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. "It's a pretty compelling study."

The abstract is here.

Policy Analysis and Data Analysis

Types of organizations

James Q Wilson's matrix of types of government organizations:

	Outputs are visible to outside observer	are invisible to observer
Outcomes are Easily measured	production organization (tax system) simple repetitive stable tasks; specialized skills	craft organization (Auditors, Attorney General, Forest Service) application of general sets of skills to unique tasks, but with stable, similar outcomes. Relies heavily on ethos and sense of duty of workers.
Not easily measured	procedural organizations (military) specialized skills; stable tasks, but unique outcomes. SOPs are especially important	coping organization (colleges, police departments) application of generic skills to unique tasks, but outcomes cannot be evaluated in absence of alternatives. Strong incentive to focus on outputs instead of outcomes.

Mythical numbers:

• More on heroin addicts
• ID theft
• Super Bowl violence

Assembling evidence

• Scholarly literature and statistics
• Bureaucracy and public policy

First Assignment, Fall 2011

CMC Government 116

Professor Pitney

First Essay Assignment

14 September 2011

Pick one of the following:

1. Read the case study of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. (I shall give it to you. For copyright reasons, I cannot put it on the blog.) Since its publication in 2009, Republicans have taken control of the House and made major gains in state legislatures. You may take one of two approaches:

a. Should FAMM change its strategy and tactics? If so, what should it do differently? If not, why will its approach work in the new setting? In your answer, consider how the organization frames the issue and presents data.

b. Identify an interest group or office holder who supports mandatory minimums.

Write a memo telling this group or person how to stop or roll back FAMM, either in Congress or a state legislature. How would you use data to re-frame the issue?

2. Write your own version of “The Vitality of Mythical Numbers” in regard to a current issue. That is, identify a dubious statistic that features prominently in policy debate, carefully explain why it is problematic, and spell out how it has distorted deliberations over the issue. (If you can publish a version of this essay in a newspaper, magazine or edited website, you will get an A for the assignment. Campus publications and personal blogs do not count.)

3. Identify a “best practice” from another state or community. Explain whether and how it would work in your own. (“Nudges” may be good examples.)

Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. And whatever your position, seriously consider obstacles and counter-arguments.

• Essays should be typed, stapled, double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.

• Put your name on a cover sheet. Do not identify yourself on the text pages.

• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.

• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.

• Return essays by the start of class, Wednesday, September 28. Late essays will drop a letter grade. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

How Non-Markets Fail (Twice)

We've been talking about the ways in which non-markets can fail, and here is a great example of non-markets doubling down on their own failures. The Washington Post published this article yesterday explaining that a series of emails from Tuesday have come to light which indicate that the Obama administration may have attempted to rush the approval of a more than $500 million loan to Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturing company. Unfortunately, the company folded two weeks ago, and American tax payers will now have to bear the burden of paying off this loan. Interestingly, this situation seems to have risen out of a double non-market failure.

First, it could be said that the failure of Solyndra, as well as its need for government loans may stem from a misguided attempt by the American government to subsidize oil, rendering it very difficult for other energy sources to compete. This failure may or may not fit easily into one of the categories of non-market failures as described by Charles Wolf Jr, but certainly reflects a poor definition of the problem by policy makers as Bardach might interpret it. The problem, in this instance, would not be that the market is incapable of supporting a solar-pannel company, but would rather be a subsidy system which unfairly disadvantages all energy sources other than fossil fuels. Rather than addressing the root problem of the flawed subsidy system, policy makers have attempted to address one of the symptoms by handing out loans to alternative energy companies.

Second, the choice by the Obama administration to rush the approval of this loan represents an excellent example of a failure within a non-market due to interfering internalities. As the Washington Post puts it:

"The August 2009 e-mails, released to The Washington Post, show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB (Office of Management and Budget) reviewers when they would be able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by Republican congressional investigators."

These emails could be interpreted in a number of ways. Under the most cynical lens, this event offers an example of a non-government operating in a way which negatively impacted its final performance in order to satisfy its private goal of maintaining a popular impression that it supported alternative energy efforts and sought and earning a major talking point before a "looming press event." In all fairness, one might also interpret the same sequence of events as depicting a non-market following up on a project of interest to it. What do you think?

Poverty Rate

A release from the Bureau of the Census:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that in 2010, median household income declined, the poverty rate increased and the percentage without health insurance coverage was not statistically different from the previous year.

Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median.

The nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 ─ the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

The number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 49.0 million in 2009 to 49.9 million in 2010, while the percentage without coverage −16.3 percent - was not statistically different from the rate in 2009.

This information covers the first full calendar year after the December 2007-June 2009 recession. See section on the historical impact of recessions.

These findings are contained in the report Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010.

Here is the perspective from the conservative Heritage Foundation:

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports:

• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• 92 percent of poor households have a microwave.
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.
• Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
• 43 percent have Internet access.
• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
• One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

For decades, the living conditions of the poor have steadily improved. Consumer items that were luxuries or significant purchases for the middle class a few decades ago have become commonplace in poor households, partially because of the normal downward price trend that follows introduction of a new product.

Matthew Yglesias writes at the liberal ThinkProgress:

When contemplating the rising poverty rate in the face of the economic downturn, it’s important to keep in mind that one crucial quirk of the way the Census Bureau calculates the poverty rate is that the value of things like food stamps and Medicaid isn’t counted in considering whether a family is above or below the line. If the government enacted a pure cash transfer, like higher EITC benefits, that would show up as lifting some families out of poverty. But if the government increases spending on non-cash anti-poverty programs, then whatever benefits those programs have doesn’t count unless they indirectly serve to boost the recipients’ market wages. This is defensible in many cases, but hardly in all of them. SNAP (“food stamps”) in particular is extremely cash-like. It’s not as good as a pure cash transfer, but it’s difficult to make the case that a family receiving an extra $50 in SNAP value isn’t clearly better off than it was before the increase in SNAP benefits.

This is important because an increase in SNAP benefit levels is something the 111th Congress enacted and President Obama signed into law back in 2009. In other words, the real evolution of living standards at the low end in the United States isn’t as bad as a cursory look at the press release would have you believe and the incremental improvement is entirely thanks to a progressive public policy intervention.

Policy Analysis: A First Cut

The Eightfold Path

• Define the Problem
• Assemble Some Evidence: other governments, think tanks
• Construct the Alternatives
• Select the Criteria: efficiency and effectiveness
• Project the Outcomes
• Confront the Trade-offs
• Decide
• Tell Your Story: SUCCES

Markets and Non-Markets

• Externalities and public goods v. "internalities" and private goods
• Increasing returns v. redundant and rising costs
• Market imperfections v. derived externalities
• Inequity of income & weath v. inequity of influence & power

Peters' Iron Triangle and the Deficit-Cutting Supercommittee

Peters' uses the illustration of "picket fence federalism" to describe how different policy areas tend to be isolated based on function. His "iron triangle" depicts the different actors involved in policy making for each functional area. One component of his iron triangle is the "committee or subcommittee." He asserts that members of subcommittees have a greater level of expertise on the policy issue at hand and in theory can come up with a more sound decision. Yet, POLITICO recently reported that the new "supercommittee" created by Pelosi to cut 1.5 trillion dollars from the deficit has been struggling to come up with ideas and focusing more on old solutions. Does this bipartisan panel have the expertise and ability to successful solve this policy issue?

Read the story here

Scott Wong of POLITCO reports on strategy of the supercommittee, "

“It wouldn’t make sense to try to reinvent the wheel,” California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a supercommittee member and the Democratic Caucus vice chairman, told POLITICO.

“We can take a lot of the good work that was done by any of these commissions and groups to give us a set of ideas which we can work off of,” he said. “If we do that, I think that can help us accelerate our time frame.”

While that doesn’t sound terribly ambitious, it does create a pretty familiar road map for the deficit panel: tax code reform, including closing loopholes for special interests and overhauling the big entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Other cuts to domestic programs are also under discussion, though the Defense Department is fighting deep cuts to military programs."

Policies, Cycles, and Politics

The instruments of policy affect one another. Special education is a good illustration:

• 1972: The U.S. District Court, District of Columbia rules in Mills v. Board of Education that DC could not exclude disabled children from the public schools. The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in PARC v. Pennsylvania struck down various state laws excluding disabled children from the public schools.
• 1973: The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 bans discrimination in federal programs and services and all other programs or services receiving federal funds. Section 504 says: “No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
• 1975: With the Mills and PARC cases as a template, The Education of All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) requires free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting. This Act later gets a new name: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law s authorizes the federal promise to provide 40 percent of the excess costs of serving students with disabilities, but during the next 36 years, Congress never appropriates more than 20 percent.
• 1977: After a year an a half, Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped issues regulations implementing the law. Meanwhile, Congress holds oversight hearings and passes additional legislation.
• 1977-82: States and local educational agencies issue their own regulations on special education.
• 1982: In the Rowley case (458 U.S. 176 (1982)), the US Supreme Court rules that "free appropriate public education" means only "some educational benefit."

Stages

First, Identification and agenda setting of a policy problem

• Confluence of policy, problems, and policy characteristics
• "Construction" of problems

Second,Formulation of policy options
Third, Approval of policy
Fourth, Implementation of policy
Fifth, Evaluation of policy, which leads to identification of unanticipated consequences and new problems, return to top

Policies create politics

The Boiler Rule

On Monday, we discussed the importance of administrative rules. In this light, The Wall Street Journal reports:

Just ahead of President Barack Obama’s big jobs speech, the American Forest & Paper Association says a pending environmental rule could cost 20,500 jobs or 18% of the industry’s workforce.

In a study to be released Wednesday, the group is taking aim at an Environmental Protection Agency rule to cut pollution from factory boilers, saying the regulation will cause 36 U.S. paper and pulp mills to close. The study comes on the heels of a decision by Mr. Obama to jettison another EPA air quality rule related to ozone that industry complained would kill millions of jobs.

The so-called boiler rule has come under sharp attack from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as well as industry, which say the regulations would be too costly and difficult to implement. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor included the rule in his list of 10 “job-destroying regulations” that he has vowed to fight.

The boiler rule would affect paper mills, refineries, chemical factories and other facilities that use boilers, such as universities, hospitals and apartment buildings. Boilers are on-site generators that can provide energy for facilities and factories. Bipartisan legislation is now pending in the House and Senate to delay implementation of the rule, with the aim of having EPA reconsider the regulation.

What Is Public Policy

The Structure of Policymaking

Federalism: There were 89,527 governments in the U.S. in 2007, up from 87,576 in 2002. This number includes the federal government, the 50 states, and 89,476 others. The federal government gives a lot of money to state and local governments.

Separation of power: see Statements of Administration Policy.

Bicameralism: conference committees and pingpong.

The private side of government: Contractors and grantees

Subgovernments and policy networks: The Case of Carol Browner

The Instruments of Policy

Law

• Statutes: US Code or state law
• Other legislative documents
• Regulations: Code of Federal Regulations or state codes
• Presidential executive orders, signing statements; Gubernatorial executive orders; "bill jackets" (New York)
• Court decisions: US Supreme Court; lower federal courts; state courts

Taxes and spending: federal budget, state budget

Services