Gov 2305- Unit 4

When two sides of an international conflict possess such enormous arsenals of nuclear missiles that each has the ability to destroy the other in the event of war, it is called

"mutually assured destruction"

As of 2020 the average Social Security payment is approximately ________ per month.

$1,500

About ______ of America's children live in poverty

16%

When did the American welfare state begin?

1930s

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in

1949

Medicare was established in

1965

The final collapse of the Soviet Union occurred in

1991

The UN Security Council has ________ permanent members and ________ elected members.

5;10

How many justices currently serve on the Supreme Court?

9

What is a tariff?

A tax on imported goods

________ policies are designed to eliminate the abuses of powerful ________.

Antitrust; monopolies

Much of President Trump's foreign policy initiatives, including the use of tariff barriers, have been targeted at ________, one of the world's great military powers.

China

________ has the authority to change the number of justices who serve on the Supreme Court.

Congress

Which of the following nations does NOT have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?

Germany

The federal government first created housing programs in response to the

Great Depression

What was the purpose of the GI Bill?

It allowed veterans returning from World War II to attend college.

How does indexing help the elderly?

It ensures that their Social Security payments will keep pace with inflation.

Which of the following is NOT a reason that military force is considered a last resort?

It has been deemed illegal by the United Nations

What is the purpose of the World Trade Organization?

It promotes free trade among its member countries.

How did the Great Depression change American attitudes about welfare?

It revealed that poverty could be caused by a flawed economic system, not just by personal irresponsibility.

The idea that the government can stimulate a slow economy by increasing public spending or cutting taxes is called

Keynesianism

Why did the United States encounter difficulties in sanctioning Russia over Russia's annexation of Crimea?

Many American allies depended on Russia for their energy needs so they were unwilling to agree to sanctions.

________ is the single-largest medical insurance program in the United States.

Medicaid

Which of the following is a contributory program?

Medicare

Which of the following is NOT part of the definition of a nation-state?

Most of the population belongs to the same political party

What did Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz mean when he called war "politics by other means"?

Nations use force to achieve their foreign policy goals.

Which of the following statements best summarizes the Democratic and Republican parties' views on the appropriate role of government in the economy?

Republicans tend to draw on the ideas of laissez-faire economics as they argue for significant reductions in nonmilitary spending; Democrats stress the importance of government regulation in promoting a strong economy.

The National Security Council includes all of the following actors EXCEPT the

Senate Foreign Committee chair

Which of the following represents the correct chronological ordering of these major moments in the history of America's social welfare programs, from earliest to most recent?

Social Security is introduced, then Medicare is introduced, and finally welfare reform creates the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

Which of the following is a noncontributory program?

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

Of the major global institutions, which is most concerned with trade?

The WTO

What was the primary way federal housing policy changed during the 1980s?

The federal government began providing low-income citizens with housing vouchers.

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

The poverty rate among African Americans and Hispanics is more than double the rate for non-Latino Whites.

Since the welfare reforms of 1996, what is the primary reason for receiving federal cash assistance if one is nonworking and able-bodied?

The recipient is caring for children

Which of the following best describes the role of the solicitor general?

The solicitor general is the lawyer who represents the United States before the Supreme Court in cases where the federal government is a party.

Which of the following is true about non-state actors?

They have become a much bigger threat since the 1990s than they were prior to then.

How do sanctions work in practice?

They include trade embargoes on, and bans on investment in, the targeted country.

What is the main job of the director of national intelligence?

To coordinate intelligence activities and prepare the president's daily intelligence briefing

Which of these bests describes the way Social Security works?

Today's workers pay for the Social Security payments to today's retirees.

The ________ is the only federal court established by the Constitution.

U.S. Supreme Court

Which of the following is the most likely to involve administrative law?

a case in which John Smith alleges a regulation promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency is invalid

Which of the following would the Supreme Court likely refuse to hear because of "mootness"?

a case involving a student suing a state-run university for discrimination in the admissions process after the student was first rejected but then later admitted to the university

Which of the following cases would always be heard in federal court?

a case involving the state of New York suing the state of New Hampshire over state highway maintenance

In some legal actions, a group or class of individuals with common interests file a suit on behalf of everyone who shares the interest. This is called

a class-action lawsuit

Social Security is a good example of

a contributory program

________ occurs when a criminal case is resolved through a negotiated agreement before a full trial is completed.

a plea bargain

In the federal court system, each circuit court of appeals has

a range of permanent judgeships depending on the workload of the circuit.

All important issues must receive ________ in order to pass through the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.

a two-thirds majority vote

Most cases reach the Supreme Court through

a writ of certiorari

The Kyoto Protocol was a(n)

agreement setting limits on emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial countries.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly

allocates one vote to each member country, regardless of population size.

A person, agency, or interest group not directly a party to a case but with an interest in its outcome may file a(n) ________ brief.

amicus curiae

Imagine that Canada is threatening to invade the United States over disputed territory. The United States decides to cede some of the territory to Canada in order to forestall the war from happening. This is an example of

appeasement

The contributions that a worker makes to Social Security through his or her taxes

are paid into the Social Security system and do not accumulate in a personal account.

Briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court

are written documents in which attorneys explain why the Court should rule in favor of their clients.

Which of the following best describes the job of a law clerk who works in a federal court?

assist federal judges by researching legal issues and helping prepare opinions

Since 2017, the Senate filibuster

cannot be used against any presidential appointments by judiciary

________ means that a case before a court must be between two truly adversarial parties.

case and controversy

American diplomacy with North Korea has often been difficult because North Korea's major backer and trading partner, ________, will not cooperate with any effort by the United States to undermine the North Korean regime.

china

When a private individual brings a suit against a company for breaking a contract, this is an example of ________ law.

civil

________ and ________ are the two most common types of civil law cases.

contacts; torts

The two policies the United States ultimately adopted in the Cold War were

containment and deterrence

Unemployment insurance is a ________ program that is funded by the ________.

contributory; federal and state governments

In what type of law is the government always the plaintiff?

criminal

Cases in which the government charges an individual with violating a statute enacted to protect public health, safety, morals, or welfare fall under

criminal law

Which of the following is least likely to influence the thinking of federal judges?

decisions of state courts

When government reduces or eliminates restraints on the conduct of individuals or private institutions, this is known as

deregulation

The representation of a government to other foreign governments is called

diplomacy

________ are used to express opposition to a Supreme Court outcome or to signal to the losing side that some members of the Court support its position.

dissenting opinions

________ is the right of every individual against arbitrary action by national or state governments.

due process of law

The term "soft power" refers to

efforts to influence other nations by persuasion rather than coercion.

An agreement between the president and another country that has the force of a treaty but does not require the Senate's "advice and consent" is called a(n)

executive agreement

In 2007 and 2008, the government faced a housing crisis caused by

foreclosures

In order for the Supreme Court to decide to grant certiorari,

four justices must vote in favor of certiorari

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was

free trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations.

What was the key to American security during the nineteenth century?

geographical isolation

Which of the following is the strongest factor in predicting which groups in society receive the most benefits from government's social policies?

groups that are the most politically powerful

The general trend over the past few decades in education policy

had initially been toward more federal government control, but recently education policy has been decentralized to the states.

Americans have historically asserted that our foreign policies should

have a higher purpose than the pursuit of our own interests and use force only as a last resort.

Which of the following goals has traditionally been of lowest priority in U.S. foreign policy?

human rights

The assignment of the opinion in a Supreme Court case is

important because differences in wording and emphasis can have important implications for how the decision is interpreted in future litigation.

Cases ________ are NOT part of the original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court.

in which more than $1 million is at stake

In 2015, the United States and Iran signed an agreement

in which the Iranians pledged not to build nuclear weapons in exchange for the United States lifting its economic sanctions against Iran.

If the United States were to provide millions of dollars in grants to pay the medical and legal expenses incurred by individuals who have been the victims of political retaliation in their own countries, doing so would

increase the United States' "soft power."

Dispute arbitration occurs when a(n)

international disagreement is referred to a neutral third party for resolution.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

is in charge of monitoring outbreaks of disease and implementing prevention measures.

The nineteenth-century policy of ________ was based on the geographic distance of the United States from other countries.

isolationism

Though used at times by justices on both sides of the partisan divide, which judicial philosophy posits that the Court should go beyond the words of the Constitution or a statute to consider the broader societal implications of its decisions?

judicial activism

The dominant economic view in America prior to the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 was

laissez-faire capitalism

The Supreme Court explains its decisions in terms of

law and precedent

Civil cases involving the citizens of more than one state and in which more than $75,000 is at stake

may be heard in either the federal or the state courts, usually depending on the preference of the plaintiff.

A(n) ________ benefit is one where potential recipients must document their genuine need.

means-tested

The policy of deterrence and containment pursued by the United States during the Cold War can be viewed as

midway between aggression and appeasement.

Historically, the power of the federal courts was subject to a number of limitations. One such limitation is that courts are "passive" institutions in that they

must wait until a case is brought to them before they can make authoritative decisions.

In Japan most of the population shares a similar common heritage and the population shares a common political authority that is recognized by other states. We would say Japan is a(n)

nation-state

Terrorists are an example of

non-state actors

If a defendant is found not guilty in a criminal case, the government is

not entitled to appeal the verdict

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act

offered federal funds for school districts with substantial numbers of children from unemployed or low-income families.

One example of ________ is the fact that a lawsuit filed by Washington against Nevada over river pollution goes directly before the Supreme Court.

original jurisdiction

If a defendant is charged with burglary, but admits to a lesser charge of trespassing in exchange for the prosecution dismissing the burglary charge and forgoing the criminal trial, it is an example of a(n)

plea bargain.

A certiorari pool describes the

practice by which Supreme Court law clerks work together to evaluate each petition.

In foreign policy, the Bush Doctrine refers to

preemptive war against threats to national security

The policy of striking a nation that might be contemplating hostile actions is called

preventative war

When new countries gain access to nuclear weapon capabilities, we refer to this as

proliferation

The fact that the United States remains silent in the face of human rights violations by a number of countries illustrates that

protecting human rights is less important to American foreign policy than security concerns and economic interests.

The World Bank's chief mission is to

provide development aid to poor countries.

Charter schools are best described as

public schools that are free to design special curricula.

Supply-side economics is the idea that

reducing the marginal rate of taxation will promote higher levels of work and investment.

One power that the Senate has, that the House does not, is the power of

reviewing and approving treaties.

A ________ state is one with unstable leadership, whose policies are driven by ideology rather than by economic or human costs and benefits.

rogue

The two primary goals of American foreign policy are

security and prosperity

When presidents nominate justices to the Supreme Court, presidents make an effort to

select justices who share their political philosophies

Generally speaking, state defendants seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus must

show that they have exhausted all available state remedies and must raise issues not previously raised in their state appeals.

In the sphere of foreign policy, which of the following is NOT a constitutional power possessed by Congress?

signing executive agreements

American foreign aid

sometimes has a humanitarian purpose, but more often is used to promote security interest or economic concerns.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the United States Supreme Court held that the District of Columbia's handgun ban was an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment. In writing the majority opinion, the late Justice Antonin Scalia looked predominantly to the words of the Second Amendment of the Constitution in interpreting its meaning. This judicial philosophy can be described as

strict construction.

If government land is leased or sold for oil and coal exploration at lower-than-market rates, it is an example of a(n)

subsidy

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

substantially increased the federal government's role in elementary and secondary education.

Social Security provides a vital role for younger people by providing

survivor benefits to those whose parents die or become disabled.

The fact that taxpayers can deduct the amount they paid in interest on a home mortgage from the income they report on their tax returns is an example of a(n)

tax expenditure

A policy of deterrence may fail against terrorist groups because

terrorist groups lack a fixed geographic location, which prevents easy retaliation

The three most important federal programs to assist the working poor are

the Affordable Care Act, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The two sides in the Cold War were

the Soviet Union and the United States

The AARP is one of the largest and most influential lobbying organizations in America. They primarily lobby on behalf of

the elderly

A writ of habeas corpus declares that

the government must show a legal cause for holding someone in detention.

The housing bubble prior to 2007 was driven primarily by

the increased demand for housing that resulted from a dramatic loosening of lending standards

Which of the following groups receives the most benefit from government's social policies?

the middle class and the elderly

Once the president has formally nominated an individual for a federal judgeship,

the nominee must be confirmed by a majority vote in the full Senate

Which of the following is the most important actor in the conduct of American foreign policy?

the president

Medical malpractice suits are good examples of ________ cases.

tort

The first court to hear a criminal case involving a violation of state law is called a(n)________ court.

trial

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are all part of the

welfare state

The term "feminization of poverty" refers to the fact that

women are more likely to be poor than men.

Justice Stephen Breyer has been assigned to write the Supreme Court's opinion in a case. After Justice Breyer drafted the opinion and circulated it to the other justices, Justice Elena Kagan decides that she wanted to emphasize a particular point in the majority opinion. For that purpose, Justice Kagan will likely

write concurring opinion