Assignment:
1. Respond to two (2) posts by your classmates regarding their views on whether they believe public policy can be separated from politics or if they believe it is inherently political by definition. Your responses should be at least two paragraphs long. A paragraph consists of at least three sentences.
2. Your answer to the question should be no less than three paragraphs long. A paragraph consists of at least three sentences.
Part 1
I believe step 1 of the policy process model, which is problem identification, is influenced the greatest by citizens. I think this because it says that the government must believe that there is an important policy challenge to be solved. This usually comes from interest groups, politicans and large number of the american public being concerned with a particular policy issue.
An example of this would be with the 2008 presidential campaign when Obama drew attention to the fact that a lot of americans lacked health care insurance. He made it his mission to make it a possibility for everyone in the United States to have access to affordable healthcare. Obama's mission came to life in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was implemented.
No, I do not think that public policy can be separated from politics because it involves many components with interconnected steps. Each of the steps affect all the others and how it influences the ultimate form and shape of the policies that are produced and not produced by the government. One example given in the textbook is with Medicare. Republicans say that the system is unsustainable due to the growing population of senior citizens, but Democrats say that with modest changes the system can be sustainable for a long period of time.
Part 2
East of the six steps in the policy process model are important. In my opinion, the 1st step: Problem Identification is the step in the policy process model that is most influenced by citizens. This step includes input from the general public in reference to policies or problems that they feel need attention and / or government intervention to make changes. If we can't identify the problem, no action can be taken for the betterment of all.
An example of this is childhood hunger. If we don't first identify and admit that there is a problem, nothing will change and children will continue to struggle through each day in school; trying to learn and focus while their stomachs are empty. According to feedingamerica.orgthere are 13 million kids in the US facing hunger; 1 in 6 kids doesn't know where their next meal will come from. It is never an easy task to look at any of the number of pockets that money being brought into the government comes from and to then allocate those funds.
Texas Partnership for Out of School Time reports that Texas had the 8th highest rate of childhood food insecurity in 2014. It costs $3,500,000.00 annually for grade retention costs directly related to childhood hunger and other causes. Whole many children receive free or reduced lunches during the school year and CCN reports that in July of 2015, that number was 21.7 million children. However, during the summer less than 4 million are fed are fed through summer food programs. Regardless of what year is represented, I feel it is safe to say that if just one child wakes up and wonders if they will get to eat that day; that is one child to many.
The Rivard Report as of February 13, 2017 states that 1 in 11 children in the United States calls Texas home. I believe that if we are able to figure out a way to focus on our children which ultimately are our future, we will all start to see a positive change and everyone's future will be brighter. We have to care for our children if we expect them to care.
I worked for the Texas Department of Human Services from Feb 1998 to June of 2001 as a fraud investigator. I would receive cases from the social workers that somehow didn't make sense and my job was to find out what the "real situation" was. There were very few cases that I investigated where all of the facts that were presented to the social worker were accurate. With this statement, I mean the person applying for benefits was straight-up lying.
Now, there were some that didn't report minor details and those details would not have made a difference in their case even if they had reported it. There was also a case that I worked that involved an elderly woman; 92 years old. On the day of her interview, it was Feb, extremely cold and raining. She walked to our office and arrived there at approximately 7:30am. One of the receptionists came to me around 4:30pm and asked if I would see her. I said, "Of course". She was receiving survivor's benefits from her deceased husband as her only income. Her 74-year-old disabled son lived with her and only received disability benefits. When we calculated her income versus her bills, she was allocated $10.00 for the month in food stamps. This hit me so hard that shortly after this interview, I left the Department of Human Services.
I tell the preceding story because I believe this is a problem that should be addressed. I do not believe that the public process model can be separated from politics. Somewhere along the line, we must require that our politicians recognize these issues. I know that I have a soft spot for the young and the elderly but, we must take care of them. They are our history and our future.