Discussion
Assessing Policy Choices
Political equilibrium is agreement about what public goods will be provided by tax dollars.
-David N. Hyman, Public Finance
Public choices are made through elected leadership because of the great amount of time and effort it would take to have citizens participate directly in making choices about the services provided by government. Within this system, political parties present candidates whose positions aim to best match those of the voters, including their views on how much public money should be spent on what programs. However, special interest groups also attempt to sway voters, candidates, and elected leaders to benefit the groups that they represent. Striking the balance between these many forces is one of the many goals of the political system, but it can be difficult to obtain and maintain.
For this Discussion, consider the recent political campaigns of your local jurisdiction: what issues were labeled important to the community, how did the officials try to encourage voter turnout, and what were the results?
Post by Day 3 an analysis of different influential factors in public policy and choice. Your analysis should answer the following questions:
What factors influence the political equilibrium? Which of these factors do you think have the most influence today, and why? Justify your response.
What factors influence the costs of supplying such public goods as police protection and national defense? What might cause these costs to go up or down? Justify your response.
Be sure to support your post with specific references to the Learning Resources and other peer-reviewed sources and provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.
Assignment - Voting and Policy Choices
Political equilibrium, as defined by Hyman (2014), ".an agreement on the level of production of one or more public goods, given the specified rule for making the collective choice and the distribution of tax shares among individuals." (p. 161). Within this system, participants such as citizens and elected representatives vote for or against spending on specific public goods based on a comparison of their benefit and their cost. For this Assignment, consider the most recent local, state, and national-level political campaigns. What public goods were at stake within these elections, and how were they marketed to voters?
In a 4-page paper, respond to the following questions based on Chapter 5 of the Hyman (2014) course text:
What factors influence how a person votes on issues that propose to change the amount of public goods supplied by the government? Explain.
How can politicians and bureaucrats influence the choices that voters have when considering specific public goods? Justify your response.
Assignment - Annual Budget: Linking Spending to Planning and Evaluation
By exploring the websites of your local government jurisdiction, you can determine the major issues facing this community and how its political leadership intends to address them. From here, you can examine the Annual Operating Budget to see if there are specific proposals and dedicated funding for implementing solutions.
For example, many communities are grappling with large homeless populations. There are many federal programs for homeless housing, but by partnering with the Department of Veteran's Affairs, there is enhanced federal support for programs that will provide housing for homeless veterans (HUD, 2014). If the homeless population is a problem that your jurisdiction is grappling with, you might examine whether the budget reveals the goal of housing homeless vets, indicates the cost, and specifies the amount contributed by the federal government. Similarly, your jurisdiction might be concerned about mitigating toxic wastes on a former industrial site that is intended for redevelopment. For this, you would look at the budget to see if the cost of remediation is included and whether federal government money is a resource intended to meet this cost. These examples represent the variety of approaches in linking financial planning and evaluation in public policy.
From the Annual Budget of your local jurisdiction, respond to the following questions in a 3- to 4-page paper:
Your jurisdiction's budget is based on spending and revenue decisions made by its political leadership-mayor, city or county manager, council or commissioners.
How is the Annual Budget linked to community goals and needs?
Who proposes the budget?
Where is it discussed, and what body has the final say on what is included and how the necessary funds are raised?
Are there quantifiable measurements of progress articulated in the budgetary documents and resources? Explain, using Chapter 6 of Hyman (2014) on "Performance Measures and Government Budgeting in Practice" in your Learning Resources.
Are there any performance statistics or management-by-objectives information presented in the budget or in accompanying material?
Do you think that cost effectiveness analysis is as important as political considerations in justifying the level of overall expenditures or special initiatives? Explain, using the information about the political process from Chapter 5 in Hyman (2014) in this week's Learning Resources.
Name of jurisdiction: THE STATE The name of jurisdiction is El Paso County, Texas. The seat of El Paso County is the city of El Paso.
Web address of the jurisdiction: The web address of the jurisdiction is: www.elpasotexas.gov
Description of the jurisdiction: The jurisdiction is a county in the US state of Texas. It is dominated mainly by the city of El Paso which is the seat of the local government. The county has a population of 800,000 (El Paso County Budget, 2017). This makes it the sixth most populated county in the state of Texas. The local government provides a number of services to citizens. These include the Sun Metro, Mass Transit System; museums and parks; police services; public health services; public library; maintenance of streets; water utility; and aviation services. The city council also provides a number of other community and environmental services.
Population: As aforementioned, according to the 2010 census, the population of El Paso County is approximately, 800,000. Most of the population resides in El Paso city.
Total Expenditure: Total expenditure in the most recent complete year, 2016, for which data is available was $ 1.126 billion. For the year 2017, the budgeted expenditure is $ 900.324 million, while in 2018 the budgeted expenditure is $ 896.357 million. This shows that the county is trying to control its expenditures. This has been done mainly to control the fiscal deficit of the local government (El Paso County Budget, 2017). For 2017 and 2018 the budgeted expenditures have been matched with budgeted revenues for the years. Property taxes are the biggest and most important source of revenue for the county of El Paso. Charges for the various services that the county government provides to its citizens, such as water utility services, account for second biggest source of revenue. They are followed by sales tax, which are the third biggest source of revenue for the local government. Other sources of revenue of El Paso county are penalties and interests; franchise fees; fines and forfeitures; license and permits; intergovernmental revenues; revenues from county participation; rents; enterprise revenues, etc. Personal services make up the biggest expenditure of the county government in a year. Personal services mean the costs of wages, salaries and other fringe benefits that are given to employees. Contractual services make up the second biggest chunk of expenditures.
These are the expenditures for the various services that the county outsources to outside vendors or contractors. Capital outlay is another significant expenditure category for the county (El Paso County Budget, 2017). Capital outlay means expenditure on acquisition of equipment, construction and land acquisition. Other expenditure categories of the county are materials and supplies; operating expenditures; non-operating expenditures; intergovernmental expenditures, etc. The services provided by El Paso County are very similar to the services provided by the jurisdiction chosen by the colleague.
Attachment:- references.rar