Final GOV quizzes
A homeowner who owes more on his or her mortgage than the mortgaged property is worth is referred to as owning a home that is
"underwater"
In 2018, each individual's required contribution to Medicare was ________ percent of all earnings.
1.45
Fake political ads and posts published on Facebook from accounts controlled by Russian operatives are estimated to have reached ________ Americans.
126 million
In which of the following years was there an electoral realignment?
1896
Congress was granted the power to tax personal income in
1913
Currently, the United Nations has ________ member states.
192
Most of the major environmental laws were written in the
1970s
During the colonial and early national periods of American history, suffrage was generally restricted to white males over the age of
21
Between 1959 and 2015, the percentage of elderly Americans living in poverty went from about ________ percent to about ________ percent.
35; 9
A majority system, which is used on a limited basis in the United States, requires that a candidate must win ________ to win an election.
50 percent plus one of all votes cast
Currently, there are ________ states that have the legislative referendum and ________ states that provide for the initiative process.
50; 24
About ________ percent of the current federal budget is spent on entitlement programs.
65
Approximately ________ percent of African Americans voted for Barack Obama in 2012.
95
A signing statement is an announcement
the president makes about his or her interpretation of a congressional enactment he or she is signing into law.
The congressional practice of "ping pong" occurs when
there is a divided Congress and the House and Senate exchange amendments in order to reach agreement on the final version of a bill.
Over the past decade, polls have shown that Asian American voters are moving
toward the Democratic Party.
State legislative districts
vary from a few thousand people in some states to nearly a million in California.
The filibuster
was rarely used throughout most of American history but has become a frequently used tactic in the U.S. Senate during the last 20 years.
The MOST significant example of devolution in recent decades has been in the area of
welfare policy
A candidate who received 20 percent of the overall vote could
win the election only if the election were held in a plurality system.
During the nineteenth century, ________ was America's dominant institution of government.
Congress
The concept of oversight refers to the effort made by
Congress to make executive agencies accountable for their actions.
Since the 1930s, most African Americans have identified as
Democrats.
The first woman to serve in Congress was
Jeanette Rankin
During the New Deal, ________ theory that a government could boost employment by stimulating demand became quite influential.
John Maynard Keynes's
Reconstruction after the Civil War was led by the ________ Party.
Republican
Passing the federal budget often requires cooperation between Democrats and Republicans in Congress because the
Senate must approve the budget with a supermajority vote (60 out of 100 votes), and rarely does one party hold 60 seats.
After the 2004 election, President George W. Bush announced that ________ would be the centerpiece of his domestic policy.
Social Security reform
Solid support for the Republican Party currently comes from the
South and Mountain West.
How is the Speaker of the House determined?
The elected leader of the majority party in the House is the Speaker.
The Department of Defense was
created in 1947 after concerns arose during World War II that the Departments of War and Navy were insufficiently integrated to fight effectively.
The Department of Health and Human Services
administers the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program.
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.
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.
527 committees are an important part of the American political system because they
are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they do not coordinate their activities with a political party.
Poor Americans had strong incentives to establish their eligibility for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits in the 1970s because AFDC recipients
automatically received Medicaid and food stamps.
A member of the House of Representatives who helps a constituent apply for Social Security benefits is engaging in
casework
A ________ is a meeting of a political group's members who gather to determine strategy and select candidates.
caucus
Deterrence assumes the ________ of the U.S. response and the ________ of an adversary.
certainty; rationality
The "nuclear option" refers to a
change to the filibuster rules enacted in 2013 that prevents the filibustering of nominees for positions in the executive branch and the federal courts.
One of the earliest activities in which party workers engage once the general election campaign for Congress begins is
ensuring that citizens are registered to vote.
In the United States, ________ groups are more likely to depend on demonstrations and other nontraditional strategies of influence.
environmental
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 order to get around the need for Senate approval of treaties, many contemporary presidents have made use of ________ in foreign affairs.
executive agreements
The Affordable Care Act originally required that state governments
expand their Medicaid programs to cover more poor people or lose all of the Medicaid funds they receive from the federal government.
A presidential emergency declaration remains in force
for only one year unless it is renewed by the president.
"Right to work" laws
guarantee that a worker does not have to belong to a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.
Federal budget spending on mandatory programs
has grown dramatically since 1970.
Presidential spouses are an important resource for the president in order to carry out the duty of
head of state.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are
headed by the president
In addition to nominating a presidential candidate, national party conventions are important because they
make rules concerning delegate selection for future primaries and draft the party's platform.
The State of the Union address is
mandated by the Constitution.
A(n) ________ benefit is one where potential recipients must document their genuine need.
means-tested
During midterm elections, voters are selecting
members of Congress.
President Clinton was unusual among modern presidents because he left the White House
more popular than when he entered.
Political scientists have found that on economic issues, both the Democratic and Republican parties are
more responsive to the preferences of the upper and middle classes than the lower class.
During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton spent
more than twice as much money as Donald Trump.
A party's platform is best understood as a
negotiated agreement among the various factions in the party.
The National Defense Education Act
offered low-interest loans to college students.
The National Park Service is
part of the Department of the Interior.
A ________ veto occurs when Congress adjourns during a 10-day period after presenting the president with a bill and he or she takes no action.
An individual who identifies a problem as a political issue and brings a policy proposal into the political agenda is referred to as a(n)
policy entrepreneur
In foreign policy, the Bush Doctrine refers to
preemptive war
A pocket veto is a
presidential veto that is automatically triggered if the president does not act on a given piece of legislation passed during the final 10 days of a legislative session.
The National Security Archive is a
private organization that makes extensive use of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain information about the activities of national security agencies.
The International Monetary Fund
provides loans and facilitates a short-term flow of money to countries in need.
A ________ specifies general rules and categories of behavior, people, and institutions, while a ________ bill grants a relief, special privilege, or exemption to a particular individual.
public bill; private
A system that allows voters to rank candidates from the most preferred to the least preferred on the ballot is called
ranked-choice voting
Many interest groups produce "scorecards" that
rate how members of Congress vote on issues of importance to that group.
A cost-of-living adjustment is based on the
rate of inflation.
Supply-side economics is the idea that
reducing the marginal rate of taxation will create a productive economy by promoting levels of work and investment that would otherwise be discouraged by higher taxes.
The House of Representatives and the Senate come closest to providing sociological representation on which of the following characteristics?
religion
Much of the power of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stems from its
responsibility to consider presidential nominees for important foreign policy posts.
The Great Depression changed American attitudes about welfare by
revealing that poverty could be caused by a flawed economic system, not just by personal irresponsibility.
During the past three decades, the level of federal payroll tax has ________, and the level of federal corporate taxes has ________.
risen; fallen
American immigration laws have
routinely given special priority to workers who have skills that are in demand among American employers
Civil servants were given legal protection against being fired without a show of cause in order to
safeguard the bureaucracy from political interference while upgrading performance.
Political parties hold primary elections or caucuses in order to
select a single candidate to represent the party in the general election.
One reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 was because
she did not win enough support of working-class white men.
Money contributed directly to a political party to be used for voter registration or party building is called
soft money
Although the Federal Reserve's decision to cut the federal funds rate is expected to ________ economic growth, its decision to raise the federal funds rate is expected to ________ economic growth.
speed up; slow down
The Every Student Succeeds law enacted by Congress in 2015 returned control for school performance to ________ testing results by race and ethnicity.
state governments but maintained the federal requirement that schools provide
Devolution describes a process through which
the federal government is downsized by delegating the implementation of programs to state and local governments.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is composed of
the five military service chiefs (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and National Guard) and the Chairman.
President Abraham Lincoln justified his 1861 decision to suspend the writ of habeas corpus by pointing to which constitutional provision?
the oath of office at the end of Article II, Section 1
John Boehner resigned from his position as Speaker of the House in 2015 because of
the opposition he faced from Tea Party activists who wanted him to take a harder line against President Obama and the Democrats.
According to political scientist John Kingdon's model of the policy-making process, what must happen to open a "window of opportunity" in which policy change is possible?
A social condition must be defined as a "problem," there must be viable policy alternatives to solving the problem, and the political environment must be conducive to implementing a solution.
In 1964, Republican Party presidential nominee ________ was in favor of less taxation and less government regulation of the economy—two ideas that became major themes for the modern Republican Party.
Barry Goldwater
The ________ is the informal designation for the heads of the major federal government departments.
Cabinet
After the Civil War, why was it considered inappropriate for President Andrew Johnson to make a series of speeches seeking public support for his policies?
During the nineteenth century, it was perceived to be undignified for a president to campaign on his own behalf.
The Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers are both parts of the
Executive Office of the President.
Generally speaking, a recall effort begins with a
Petition campaign
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, election campaigns tended to be
labor intensive.
A proposed law or policy change that is placed on the ballot by citizens or interest groups for a popular vote is called a
ballot initiative.
A state with a roughly equal number of Democrats and Republicans in the population is often referred to as a ________ state.
battleground.
Congress is a ________ legislature with ________ total members.
bicameral; 535
Line agencies are
bureau-level agencies that deal directly with the public.
The Human Genome Project was initiated
by government researchers and taken up later by private corporations.
Both 527 committees and 501(c)(4)s
can spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy as long as their efforts are not coordinated with those of any candidate's campaign.
In the so-called top-two primary system
candidates from all parties run against one another and the top two face each other in the general election.
Foreign aid is an economic ________; sanctions are an economic ________.
carrot; stick
The Senate and House Appropriations committees are important because they
decide how much funding various programs will receive and how the money will be spent.
Plurality and majority systems tend to
decrease the number of political parties.
A member of Congress who votes for a bill with which he or she disagrees because a majority of his or her constituents favor it is acting as a
delegate
All of the following are responsibilities of a party's national committee EXCEPT
determining committee assignments for members of Congress.
By using donor lists or magazine subscription lists, candidates are able to engage in
direct-mail solicitations.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 did NOT include
economic incentives to purchase new, more fuel-efficient vehicles when trading in less fuel-efficient vehicles.
The four joint committees in Congress are
economic, taxation, library, and printing.
At the national level, the Democratic Party currently attempts to appeal to ________, while the Republican Party currently attempts to appeal to ________.
educated upper-middle-class professionals; white working-class voters
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."
As of 2014, a provision in the Affordable Care Act ________ Medicare taxes for households earning ________.
increased; more than $250,000 a year by 0.9 percent
A senator or representative running for re-election is called the
incumbent
The Hastert rule is a(n)
informal Republican Party rule that the Speaker of the House will not allow any bill to reach the floor unless it has the support of a majority of Republican members of the House.
In 2013, it was revealed that the National Security Agency's PRISM program was
intercepting, examining, and storing the email, social network posts, internet searches, and local telephone calls of millions of Americans.
Amnesty International is a(n)
interest group that works to protect human rights.
The Federal Reserve Board has all of the following powers EXCEPT the power to
investigate and prosecute tax evaders.
Conference committees are
temporary, involve members from both houses of Congress, and are charged with reaching a compromise on legislation once it has been passed by both the House and the Senate.
A major factor in John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential victory over Richard Nixon was
that Kennedy had a much stronger performance than Nixon during televised debates.
ISIS stands for
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Evangelical Protestants are more likely to be associated with
the Republican Party.
