Gov Test 5

The federal minimum wage was ________ an hour in 2014.

$7.25

Poverty line

A method used to count the number of poor people, it considers what a family must spend for an "austere" standard of living.

Economic recession

A period of economic decline when demand for work is low or even stops.

unipolar (power structure)

A power structure dominated by a single powerful actor, as in the case of the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

bipolar (power structure)

A power structure dominated by two powers only, as in the case of the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

Which of the following statements about American's health care views is most accurate?

Although a majority of Americans believe that government should ensure that all people receive adequate health care, there is considerable disagreement about how to deliver such benefits and how to pay for them.

Containment

American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world

supply-side economics

An economic philosophy that holds the 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.

Which of the following actions marked a decisive break with the tradition of the federal government promoting compromises between labor and management?

President Ronald Reagan firing striking air traffic controllers and hiring permanent replacements to fill their jobs in 1981.

Social Insurance

Programs in which eligibility is based on prior contributions to government, usually in the form of payroll taxes.

________ taxation occurs when people in lower income brackets pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes.

Regressive

The constitutional source of Congress's monetary and fiscal powers is in

Article I, Section 8.

Military-industrial complex

Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending.

_______ warned Americans against too much involvement with foreign nations.

George Washington

Entitlement programs

Government benefits that certain qualified individuals are entitled to by law, regardless of need.

Which of the following statements about Social Security is true?

Social Security redistributes wealth from younger workers to older retirees.

After the election of 2004, President George W. Bush announced that ________ would be the centerpiece of his domestic policy.

Social Security reform

________ were the centerpiece of George W. Bush's economic policy.

Tax cuts

Preemptive war doctrine

The idea, espoused by President George W. Bush, that the United States could attack a potentially threatening nation even if the threat had not yet reached a serious and immediate level.

Which of the following statements about who really makes American foreign policy is true?

The reason influence varies from case to case is that each case arises under different conditions and with different time constraints.

Which war was officially declared by Congress?

War of 1812

Social Security is a good example of ________.

a contributory program

Inflation

a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.

The chief task of the National Security Council is to

coordinate the differences among the executive's key foreign policy makers.

The most significant education policy developed by the federal government in the nineteenth century was the

creation of the GI bill.

Which of the following is an example of mandatory spending?

farm price supports and Medicare

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

geographical isolation

Goldberg v. Kelly (1970)

held that public assistance benefits could not be revoked without due process of law.

The main change in welfare policies since 1996 is ________.

increased use of noncash assistance

Amnesty International is a(n)

interest group that works to protect human rights.

multipolar power structure

is a system in which power is distributed at least among 3 significant poles concentrating wealth and/or military capabilities and able to block or disrupt major political arrangements threatening their major interests.

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

is caring for children.

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

isolationism

During the 1990s, the importance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) increased due to

its efforts to reform Communist countries and bring them more fully into the global capitalist economy.

A ________ is an incentive in the tax code for individuals and corporations to invest their money in ways that government officials desire in exchange for a reduction in tax liabilities.

loophole

Part of the reason welfare programs became so unpopular was that

many Americans came to believe that welfare recipients did not want to work.

The United States chose to fight a war in Korea because

policy makers believed that if the United States did not fight, it would embolden the Soviet Union to pursue an expansionist policy elsewhere.

A way to reduce the disparities in wealth between the rich and poor is called a(n) ________.

policy of redistribution

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.

Charter schools are best described as

public schools that are free to design special curricula.

A policy of deterrence may fail against terrorist groups because

terrorist groups are nonstate actors who may believe that their lack of a fixed geographic location prevents their targets from retaliating militarily.

For the first 150 years of American history, Congress's role in foreign policy was limited because

the United States' role in world affairs was very limited.

The "feminization of poverty" refers to

the fact that women are more likely to be poor than men.

The term "shadow welfare state" refers to

the federally subsidized social benefits that private employers offer to their workers

Protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in recent years were prompted by

the perception that the WTO was not paying enough attention to developing countries.

Which of the following is a goal of American social policy?

the promotion of equality of opportunity

The Earned Income Tax Credit allows

working people whose annual income falls below a certain level to file for an income supplement through their tax return.

The U.S. Public Health Service was founded in ________.

1798

The minimum wage was first enacted in ________.

1938

Medicare was established in ________.

1965

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

5; 10

About ________ percent of the current federal budget is spent on entitlement programs.

64

The Federal Reserve Board is composed of ________ members who are appointed to ________ year terms.

7; 14

The ________ has taken the lead in conducting basic research to counter bioterrorism.

National Institutes of Health

The headquarters of the United Nations is located in ________.

New York

Why do many businesses prefer Congress to regulate the economy?

One national regulation is better than the inconsistencies and disparities of different state laws.

Isolationist

People who wanted the United States to stay out of world affairs

One of the most controversial areas of trade liberalization is ________.

agriculture

Deregulation of the mortgage industry in 1999 helped produce the housing crisis of 2007 and 2008 by

allowing many new mortgage companies to form, offering "predatory" loans that people could not afford to repay.

Before the 1930s, relations between labor and management in the United States were ________.

among the most violent in the world

The ________ is the amount by which government spending exceeds government revenue in a fiscal year.

budget deficit

Setting emissions standards for each industry, while allowing companies to trade "carbon credits," is an approach to environmental policy known as ________.

cap and trade

Which of the following played an important role in caring for the poor during the nineteenth century?

churches and religious organizations

During the New Deal, ________ theory that a government could boost employment by stimulating demand became quite influential.

John Maynard Keynes's

The United States has about ________ percent of the world's population and is responsible for ________ percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.

10; 25

President ________ vowed "to end welfare as we know it."

Bill Clinton

American diplomacy with North Korea has been futile 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

The two largest recipients of military assistance from the United States are

Israel and Egypt.

Budget surplus/deficit

The difference between government revenue and expenditure for a stated fixed period of time.

Something that must be supplied by the government because it cannot be provided by the marketplace is called ________.

a public good

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

a two-thirds majority vote

The Securities and Exchange Commission was established

after the stock market crash of 1929.

Beginning in the late 1950s, the federal government

agreed to pay 90 percent of highway construction costs on the condition that each state provide 10 percent of the costs of any portion of a highway built within its boundaries.

The Kyoto Protocol was a(n)

agreement setting limits on emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial countries