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1. the biggest problems and greatest strengths of the u.s. political system.

The public sees a number of specific problems with American politics. Partisan fighting, the high cost of political campaigns, and the outsize influence of special interests and lobbyists are each seen as characteristic of the U.S. political system by at least 84% of Americans.

Yet 63% also say that “ordinary Americans care about making the political system work well” is a good description of U.S. politics today. Still, when asked to describe a strength of the political system in their own words, more than half either say “nothing” (22%) or decline to give an answer (34%).

Americans view negative statements as better descriptions of the political system than positive ones

Chart shows widely shared criticisms of politics: Partisan fights, costly campaigns, influence of special interests

More than eight-in-ten adults say that each of the following is at least a somewhat good description of the U.S. political system today:

  • Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems (86%);
  • The cost of political campaigns makes it hard for good people to run for office (85%);
  • Special interest groups and lobbyists have too much say in what happens in politics (84%).

About six-in-ten (63%) think ordinary Americans want to make the political system work well. This is the rare positive sentiment that a majority views as a good descriptor of the political system.

Fewer than half of adults hold the view that the government deserves more credit than it gets: Majorities say that “the federal government does more for ordinary Americans than people give it credit for” (59%) and “Congress accomplishes more than people give it credit for” (65%) are both bad descriptions of the political system.

Nearly seven-in-ten adults express frustration with the availability of unbiased information about politics: 68% say the statement “it is easy to find unbiased information about what is happening in politics” is not a good description of the political system.

And just 22% of Americans say that political leaders facing consequences for acting unethically is a good description of the political system. They are more than three times as likely to say that this is a bad description (76% say this).

Many critiques of the political system are bipartisan

Partisans have similar views of many of the descriptions of the political system included in the survey.

Chart shows Partisans largely agree in views of many problems with the political system

Overwhelming majorities in both parties think there is too much partisan fighting, campaigns cost too much, and lobbyists and special interests have too much say in politics. And just 24% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 20% of Republicans and Republican leaners say that political leaders face consequences if they act unethically.

The widest partisan gap is over a description of the federal government. Democrats are roughly twice as likely as Republicans to say “the federal government does more for ordinary Americans than people give it credit for” (54% vs. 26%).

There is a narrower gap in views of Congress’ accomplishments: 37% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans say it accomplishes more than people give it credit for.

Democrats are also more likely to say, “It is easy to find unbiased information about what is happening in politics” (36% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans say this is a good description of the political system today), while Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to view ordinary Americans as wanting to make the political system work well (67% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats say this is a good description).

In their own words: Americans on the political system’s biggest problems

Chart shows roughly a third of Americans say ‘politicians’ are the biggest problem with the political system today

When asked to describe in their own words the biggest problem with the political system in the U.S. today, Americans point to a wide range of factors.

Negative characteristics attributed to politicians and political leaders are a common complaint: 31% of U.S. adults say politicians are the biggest problem with the system, including 15% who point to greed or corruption and 7% who cite dishonesty or a lack of trustworthiness.

The biggest problem, according to one woman in her 50s, is that politicians are “hiding the truth and fulfilling their own agendas.” Similarly, a man in his 30s says, “They don’t work for the people. They are too corrupt and busy filling their pockets.”

Explore more voices: The political system’s biggest problems

What do you see as the biggest problem with the political system in the U.S. today?

“An almost total lack of credibility and trust. Coupled with a media that’s so biased, that they’ve lost all objectivity.” –Man, 70s

“Lying about intentions or not following through with what elected officials said they would do.” –Woman, 20s

“Blind faith in political figures.” –Woman, 50s

“Our elected officials would rather play political games than serve the needs of their constituents.” –Woman, 50s

“Same politicians in office too long.” –Woman, 30s

“Extremism on both sides exploited by the mainstream media for ratings. It is making it impossible for both parties to work together.” –Man, 30s

“It has become too polarized. No one is willing to compromise or be moderate.” –Woman, 40s

“Too much money in politics coming from large corporations and special interest.” –Man, 30s

“The people have no say in important matters, we have NO representation at all. Our lawmakers are isolated and could care less what we want.” –Man, 60s

About two-in-ten adults cite deep divisions between the parties as the biggest problem with the U.S. political system, with respondents describing a lack of cooperation between the parties or among elected leaders in Washington.

“Both of the political parties are so busy trying to stop the other party, they are wasting their opportunities to solve the problems faced by our nation,” in the view of one man in his 70s.

Even as some blame polarization, others (10% of respondents) identify the other party as the system’s biggest problem. Some Republicans say that the biggest problem is “Democrats” while some Democrats simply say “Republicans.”

Smaller but substantial shares of adults name the media and political discourse (9%), the influence of money in politics (7%), government’s perceived failures (6%), specific policy areas and issues (6%) or problems with elections and voting (4%) as the biggest problem with the political system today.

In their own words: Americans on the political system’s biggest strengths

Chart shows those who see strengths in the U.S. political system often cite constitutional principles, democratic values

Far fewer adults name a specific strength of the political system today when asked to describe the system’s biggest strength in their own words. More than half either say that the system lacks a biggest strength (22%) or decline to answer (34%). As one woman in her 60s writes, “I’m not seeing any strengths!”

Among those who do identify strengths of the U.S. political system, the structure of political institutions and the principles that define the constitutional order are named most frequently (by 12% of respondents). Many respondents specifically point to the Constitution itself or refer to the separation of powers or the checks and balances created by the Constitution.

A man in his 20s believes that the “separation of powers and federalism work pretty well,” while one in his 30s writes that the system’s greatest strength is “the checks and balances to make sure that monumental changes aren’t made unilaterally.”

Explore more voices: The political system’s biggest strengths

What do you see as the biggest strength of the U.S. political system today?

“Everyone getting a say; democracy.” –Woman, 40s

“The right to have your opinions heard.” –Man, 60s

“In spite of our differences, we are still a democracy, and I believe there are people within our government who still care and are interested in the betterment of our country.” –Woman, 50s

“The freedom of speech and religion” –Woman, 50s

“If we have fair, honest elections we can vote out the corruption and/or incompetent politicians.” –Man, 70s

“The Constitution.” –Man, 50s

“The checks and balances to control the power of any office. The voice of the people and the options to remove an official from office.” –Man, 60s

“New, younger voices in government.” –Woman, 40s

“If we can’t get more bipartisanship we’ll become weaker. Our biggest strength is our working together.” –Woman, 60s

“The way that every two years the people get to make their voice heard.” –Man, 30s

About one-in-ten (9%) refer to individual freedoms and related democratic values, while a similar share (8%) discuss the right to vote and the existence of free elections. A woman in her 70s echoes many similar comments when she points to “the possibility of change in upcoming elections.”

However, even some of the descriptions of positive characteristics of the system are couched in respondents’ doubts about the way the system is working today. One woman in her 50s adds a qualification to what she views as the system’s biggest strength, saying, “Theoretically every voter has a say.”

Smaller shares of the public point to the positive characteristics of some politicians (4%) or the positive characteristics of the American people (4%) as reasons for optimism.

Are there clear solutions to the nation’s problems?

The public remains roughly evenly split over whether there are clear solutions to the biggest issues facing the country. Half of Americans today say there are clear solutions to most of the big issues facing the country, while about as many (48%) say most big issues don’t have clear solutions.

Chart shows Americans are split over whether there are clear solutions to big national issues

There are relatively modest demographic and political differences in perceptions of whether the solutions to the nations’ problems are clear or not.

While both men and women are relatively divided on this question, women are 6 percentage points more likely to think the big issues facing the country don’t have clear solutions.

Race and ethnicity

While 43% of Hispanic adults and about half of Black (50%) and White (48%) adults say there aren’t clear solutions for most big issues, that rises to 62% among Asian adults.

Age differences on this question are modest, but those under 30 are slightly more likely than those 30 and older to say most big issues have clear solutions.

Partisanship and political engagement

Both Republicans and Democrats are relatively split on this question, though Republicans are slightly more likely to say there are clear solutions to most big issues.

Those with higher levels of political engagement are more likely to say there are clear solutions to most big issues facing the country.

About six-in-ten adults with high levels of political engagement (61%) say there are clear solutions to big issues today, compared with half of those with medium levels of engagement and 41% of those with lower engagement.

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Report Materials

Table of contents, tuning out: americans on the edge of politics, americans’ dismal views of the nation’s politics, narrow majorities in u.s. house have become more common but haven’t always led to gridlock, as partisan hostility grows, signs of frustration with the two-party system, the polarization in today’s congress has roots that go back decades, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Cyber-Influence and Power, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Each and every one of us has a vital part to play in building the kind of world in which government and technology serve the world’s people and not the other way around. Rebecca MacKinnon

Over the past 20 years, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have transformed the globe, facilitating the international economic, political, and cultural connections and exchanges that are at the heart of contemporary globalization processes. The term ICT is broad in scope, encompassing both the technological infrastructure and products that facilitate the collection, storage, manipulation, and distribution of information in a variety of formats.

While there are many definitions of globalization, most would agree that the term refers to a variety of complex social processes that facilitate worldwide economic, cultural, and political connections and exchanges. The kinds of global connections ICTs give rise to mark a dramatic departure from the face-to-face, time and place dependent interactions that characterized communication throughout most of human history. ICTs have extended human interaction and increased our interconnectedness, making it possible for geographically dispersed people not only to share information at an ever-faster rate but also to organize and to take action in response to events occurring in places far from where they are physically situated.

While these complex webs of connections can facilitate positive collective action, they can also put us at risk. As TED speaker Ian Goldin observes, the complexity of our global connections creates a built-in fragility: What happens in one part of the world can very quickly affect everyone, everywhere.

The proliferation of ICTs and the new webs of social connections they engender have had profound political implications for governments, citizens, and non-state actors alike. Each of the TEDTalks featured in this course explore some of these implications, highlighting the connections and tensions between technology and politics. Some speakers focus primarily on how anti-authoritarian protesters use technology to convene and organize supporters, while others expose how authoritarian governments use technology to manipulate and control individuals and groups. When viewed together as a unit, the contrasting voices reveal that technology is a contested site through which political power is both exercised and resisted.

Technology as liberator

The liberating potential of technology is a powerful theme taken up by several TED speakers in Cyber-Influence and Power . Journalist and Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon, for example, begins her talk by playing the famous Orwell-inspired Apple advertisement from 1984. Apple created the ad to introduce Macintosh computers, but MacKinnon describes Apple's underlying narrative as follows: "technology created by innovative companies will set us all free." While MacKinnon examines this narrative with a critical eye, other TED speakers focus on the ways that ICTs can and do function positively as tools of social change, enabling citizens to challenge oppressive governments.

In a 2011 CNN interview, Egyptian protest leader, Google executive, and TED speaker Wael Ghonim claimed "if you want to free a society, just give them internet access. The young crowds are going to all go out and see and hear the unbiased media, see the truth about other nations and their own nation, and they are going to be able to communicate and collaborate together." (i). In this framework, the opportunities for global information sharing, borderless communication, and collaboration that ICTs make possible encourage the spread of democracy. As Ghonim argues, when citizens go online, they are likely to discover that their particular government's perspective is only one among many. Activists like Ghonim maintain that exposure to this online free exchange of ideas will make people less likely to accept government propaganda and more likely to challenge oppressive regimes.

A case in point is the controversy that erupted around Khaled Said, a young Egyptian man who died after being arrested by Egyptian police. The police claimed that Said suffocated when he attempted to swallow a bag of hashish; witnesses, however, reported that he was beaten to death by the police. Stories about the beating and photos of Said's disfigured body circulated widely in online communities, and Ghonim's Facebook group, titled "We are all Khaled Said," is widely credited with bringing attention to Said's death and fomenting the discontent that ultimately erupted in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, or what Ghonim refers to as "revolution 2.0."

Ghonim's Facebook group also illustrates how ICTs enable citizens to produce and broadcast information themselves. Many people already take for granted the ability to capture images and video via handheld devices and then upload that footage to platforms like YouTube. As TED speaker Clay Shirky points out, our ability to produce and widely distribute information constitutes a revolutionary change in media production and consumption patterns. The production of media has typically been very expensive and thus out of reach for most individuals; the average person was therefore primarily a consumer of media, reading books, listening to the radio, watching TV, going to movies, etc. Very few could independently publish their own books or create and distribute their own radio programs, television shows, or movies. ICTs have disrupted this configuration, putting media production in the hands of individual amateurs on a budget — or what Shirky refers to as members of "the former audience" — alongside the professionals backed by multi-billion dollar corporations. This "democratization of media" allows individuals to create massive amounts of information in a variety of formats and to distribute it almost instantly to a potentially global audience.

Shirky is especially interested in the Internet as "the first medium in history that has native support for groups and conversations at the same time." This shift has important political implications. For example, in 2008 many Obama followers used Obama's own social networking site to express their unhappiness when the presidential candidate changed his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The outcry of his supporters did not force Obama to revert to his original position, but it did help him realize that he needed to address his supporters directly, acknowledging their disagreement on the issue and explaining his position. Shirky observes that this scenario was also notable because the Obama organization realized that "their role was to convene their supporters but not to control their supporters." This tension between the use of technology in the service of the democratic impulse to convene citizens vs. the authoritarian impulse to control them runs throughout many of the TEDTalks in Cyber-Influence and Power.

A number of TED speakers explicitly examine the ways that ICTs give individual citizens the ability to document governmental abuses they witness and to upload this information to the Internet for a global audience. Thus, ICTs can empower citizens by giving them tools that can help keep their governments accountable. The former head of Al Jazeera and TED speaker Wadah Khanfar provides some very clear examples of the political power of technology in the hands of citizens. He describes how the revolution in Tunisia was delivered to the world via cell phones, cameras, and social media outlets, with the mainstream media relying on "citizen reporters" for details.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown's TEDTalk also highlights some of the ways citizens have used ICTs to keep their governments accountable. For example, Brown recounts how citizens in Zimbabwe used the cameras on their phones at polling places in order to discourage the Mugabe regime from engaging in electoral fraud. Similarly, Clay Shirky begins his TEDTalk with a discussion of how cameras on phones were used to combat voter suppression in the 2008 presidential election in the U.S. ICTs allowed citizens to be protectors of the democratic process, casting their individual votes but also, as Shirky observes, helping to "ensure the sanctity of the vote overall."

Technology as oppressor

While smart phones and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have arguably facilitated the overthrow of dictatorships in places like Tunisia and Egypt, lending credence to Gordon Brown's vision of technology as an engine of liberalism and pluralism, not everyone shares this view. As TED speaker and former religious extremist Maajid Nawaz points out, there is nothing inherently liberating about ICTs, given that they frequently are deployed to great effect by extremist organizations seeking social changes that are often inconsistent with democracy and human rights. Where once individual extremists might have felt isolated and alone, disconnected from like-minded people and thus unable to act in concert with others to pursue their agendas, ICTs allow them to connect with other extremists and to form communities around their ideas, narratives, and symbols.

Ian Goldin shares this concern, warning listeners about what he calls the "two Achilles heels of globalization": growing inequality and the fragility that is inherent in a complex integrated system. He points out that those who do not experience the benefits of globalization, who feel like they've been left out in one way or another, can potentially become incredibly dangerous. In a world where what happens in one place very quickly affects everyone else — and where technologies are getting ever smaller and more powerful — a single angry individual with access to technological resources has the potential to do more damage than ever before. The question becomes then, how do we manage the systemic risk inherent in today's technology-infused globalized world? According to Goldin, our current governance structures are "fossilized" and ill-equipped to deal with these issues.

Other critics of the notion that ICTs are inherently liberating point out that ICTs have been leveraged effectively by oppressive governments to solidify their own power and to manipulate, spy upon, and censor their citizens. Journalist and TED speaker Evgeny Morozov expresses scepticism about what he calls "iPod liberalism," or the belief that technology will necessarily lead to the fall of dictatorships and the emergence of democratic governments. Morozov uses the term "spinternet" to describe authoritarian governments' use of the Internet to provide their own "spin" on issues and events. Russia, China, and Iran, he argues, have all trained and paid bloggers to promote their ideological agendas in the online environment and/or or to attack people writing posts the government doesn't like in an effort to discredit them as spies or criminals who should not be trusted.

Morozov also points out that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are tools not only of revolutionaries but also of authoritarian governments who use them to gather open-source intelligence. "In the past," Morozov maintains, "it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. KGB...used to torture in order to get this data." Instead of focusing primarily on bringing Internet access and devices to the people in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, Morozov argues that we need to abandon our cyber-utopian assumptions and do more to actually empower intellectuals, dissidents, NGOs and other members of society, making sure that the "spinternet" does not prevent their voices from being heard.

The ICT Empowered Individual vs. The Nation State

In her TEDTalk "Let's Take Back the Internet," Rebecca MacKinnon argues that "the only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and…the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us." It is clearly not a given, however, that governments, organizations, and individuals will use technology benevolently. Part of the responsibility of citizenship in the globalized information age then is to work to ensure that both governments and technologies "serve the world's peoples." However, there is considerable disagreement about what that might look like.

WikiLeaks spokesperson and TED speaker Julian Assange, for example, argues that government secrecy is inconsistent with democratic values and is ultimately about deceiving and manipulating rather than serving the world's people. Others maintain that governments need to be able to keep secrets about some topics in order to protect their citizens or to act effectively in response to crises, oppressive regimes, terrorist organizations, etc. While some view Assange's use of technology as a way to hold governments accountable and to increase transparency, others see this use of technology as a criminal act with the potential to both undermine stable democracies and put innocent lives in danger.

ICTs and global citizenship

While there are no easy answers to the global political questions raised by the proliferation of ICTs, there are relatively new approaches to the questions that look promising, including the emergence of individuals who see themselves as global citizens — people who participate in a global civil society that transcends national boundaries. Technology facilitates global citizens' ability to learn about global issues, to connect with others who care about similar issues, and to organize and act meaningfully in response. However, global citizens are also aware that technology in and of itself is no panacea, and that it can be used to manipulate and oppress.

Global citizens fight against oppressive uses of technology, often with technology. Technology helps them not only to participate in global conversations that affect us all but also to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized or altogether missing from such conversations. Moreover, global citizens are those who are willing to grapple with large and complex issues that are truly global in scope and who attempt to chart a course forward that benefits all people, regardless of their locations around the globe.

Gordon Brown implicitly alludes to the importance of global citizenship when he states that we need a global ethic of fairness and responsibility to inform global problem-solving. Human rights, disease, development, security, terrorism, climate change, and poverty are among the issues that cannot be addressed successfully by any one nation alone. Individual actors (nation states, NGOs, etc.) can help, but a collective of actors, both state and non-state, is required. Brown suggests that we must combine the power of a global ethic with the power to communicate and organize globally in order for us to address effectively the world's most pressing issues.

Individuals and groups today are able to exert influence that is disproportionate to their numbers and the size of their arsenals through their use of "soft power" techniques, as TED speakers Joseph Nye and Shashi Tharoor observe. This is consistent with Maajid Nawaz's discussion of the power of symbols and narratives. Small groups can develop powerful narratives that help shape the views and actions of people around the world. While governments are far more accustomed to exerting power through military force, they might achieve their interests more effectively by implementing soft power strategies designed to convince others that they want the same things. According to Nye, replacing a "zero-sum" approach (you must lose in order for me to win) with a "positive-sum" one (we can both win) creates opportunities for collaboration, which is necessary if we are to begin to deal with problems that are global in scope.

Let's get started

Collectively, the TEDTalks in this course explore how ICTs are used by and against governments, citizens, activists, revolutionaries, extremists, and other political actors in efforts both to preserve and disrupt the status quo. They highlight the ways that ICTs have opened up new forms of communication and activism as well as how the much-hailed revolutionary power of ICTs can and has been co-opted by oppressive regimes to reassert their control.

By listening to the contrasting voices of this diverse group of TED speakers, which includes activists, journalists, professors, politicians, and a former member of an extremist organization, we can begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ways that technology can be used both to facilitate and contest a wide variety of political movements. Global citizens who champion democracy would do well to explore these intersections among politics and technology, as understanding these connections is a necessary first step toward MacKinnon's laudable goal of building a world in which "government and technology serve the world's people and not the other way around."

Let's begin our exploration of the intersections among politics and technology in today's globalized world with a TEDTalk from Ian Goldin, the first Director of the 21st Century School, Oxford University's think tank/research center. Goldin's talk will set the stage for us, exploring the integrated, complex, and technology rich global landscape upon which the political struggles for power examined by other TED speakers play out.

our government today essay

Navigating our global future

i. "Welcome to Revolution 2.0, Ghonim Says," CNN, February 9, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/02/09/wael.ghonim.interview.cnn .

Relevant talks

our government today essay

Gordon Brown

Wiring a web for global good.

our government today essay

Clay Shirky

How social media can make history.

our government today essay

Wael Ghonim

Inside the egyptian revolution.

our government today essay

Wadah Khanfar

A historic moment in the arab world.

our government today essay

Evgeny Morozov

How the net aids dictatorships.

our government today essay

Maajid Nawaz

A global culture to fight extremism.

our government today essay

Rebecca MacKinnon

Let's take back the internet.

our government today essay

Julian Assange

Why the world needs wikileaks.

our government today essay

Global power shifts

our government today essay

Shashi Tharoor

Why nations should pursue soft power.

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Federalism, Now More Than Ever

In crafting our constitutional arrangement, the Framers chose a political union that divides power between a central government and member sovereigns. Federalism, they believed, was the best way to ensure a harmonious union between separate states with distinct cultures and political preferences. Yet over the past century, our political system has become increasingly centralized, with the federal government prescribing one-size-fits-all policy in some of the most contested areas of public discourse, like healthcare, education, and entitlements. The consequences of this consolidation are palpable — our country is politically fractured, with diverse sectors of society straining under the weight of policy dictated by distant lawmakers unacquainted with the needs of their constituents. By returning power to the states — those same powers expressly reserved to them under the Tenth Amendment — we can hope for some semblance of harmony.

While the Constitution clearly envisions a federal system, American federalism is, in part, the result of historical happenstance. Our democratic republic took form from thirteen colonies that came together as thirteen independent states. But the Framers were intentional in their decision to preserve the arrangement, believing that government that is closer to the people it serves is more effective.

Even if the Constitution did not clearly prescribe federalism, however, there are practical reasons to embrace the federal model. Much like the principle of subsidiarity, federalism promotes the common good: By retaining political authority at more localized levels of civic society, individuals are more likely to participate directly in crafting solutions to their own problems, which allows human dignity to flourish. Federalism also incentivizes a race to the top, whereby states are in constant competition to provide better governance and better policy for their citizens. And by allowing states to operate as “laboratories of democracy,” all Americans benefit. When one state shows that a particular policy works well, other states will likely follow suit and attempt to replicate it. But if a particular policy fails, Americans in the other 49 states are spared from having to suffer under it.

Despite these practical — and constitutional — reasons for embracing federalism, our national government has ballooned in size and power over the last two decades. And no one party is to blame. While centralization has, in recent decades, been associated with the Democratic Party, both parties have shown themselves to be fair-weather friends of centralized government. Whenever the balance of power shifts at the national level, the party in power is happy to wield the mighty sword of federal authority, while the party in the minority parries with the shield of federalism. During the Clinton Administration, for example, federalism had a resurgence among conservatives. Variously dubbed “New Federalism” or the “Devolution Revolution,” the federalism of the 1990’s was closely associated with the conservative push for, among other things, reassigning the administration of social services to the states. During the Bush Administration, however, many of these same conservatives began to advocate for increased national control over education and healthcare. Most recently, during the Trump Administration, “blue states” became some of the strongest advocates of federalism, as they tried to resist federal policy in areas like immigration and the environment. California, for example, leaned heavily on principles of federalism and the related anti-commandeering doctrine to defend its “sanctuary state” from the Trump Administration’s influence.

But is this constant vacillation between federal and state control good for our country and our national discourse? Perhaps instead of expanding and contracting our view of states’ rights with each election cycle, we would be wise to consider embracing our federal system as it was originally understood, regardless of which way the political winds are blowing. Indeed, it has often worked well for us when we’ve done just that.

Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a paradigm for how essential and effective federalism is. Florida, for instance, has had success in reducing deaths and overall infections, even while being home to one of the highest percentages of high-risk individuals in the country. Other states, like New York, have been abject failures. Our federal system allowed states to innovate and tailor their response to the pandemic to the needs of their own people and their own circumstances. Had Washington dictated a one-size-fits all response, all states — and thus the entire country — would have risked more infections and more lives lost. Indeed, the state-level response to the COVID-19 pandemic has become a case in point for our federal system.

Perhaps the most compelling counterargument to a full-scale embrace of federalism is the fact that, at the time in American history when states had the most independence, many states endorsed the institution of slavery, culminating in the Civil War. How then can we say that ceding power back to the states is a prudent strategy for creating harmony in our nation? The answer lies in a proper understanding of the balance between state and federal authority. To be sure, the federal government has a crucial role to play in a healthy federal system. The federal government should take seriously its duty to enforce the Reconstruction amendments, which prevent states from legalizing slavery and violating the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution. In fact, the absence of such national authority in the early years of the Republic allowed slavery to expand. But apart from the powers expressly granted to the federal government — crafting foreign policy, regulating interstate commerce, protecting those rights guaranteed under the Reconstruction amendments, and a handful of other powers — the Constitution contemplates strong state governments that are free to develop their own political systems. This is the vision of federalism to which we should return.

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Item 1 - purpose and function of our government - general.

Published on Mon, May 17, 2021 9:00AM PDT | Updated Mon, May 17, 2021 9:10AM PDT

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The United States of America (US) is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district of Washington, D.C., five major and various minor insular areas, as well as over 90,000 local governments, including counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, and special district governments. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 329 million people, the US is the world’s third-largest country by total area and the third most populous.

Our vision and mission

As documented in the US Constitution, the people of the US, through our Government, seek to form a more perfect union by establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Our strategy

To achieve the mission of the people, our Government raises money, spends money, and exercises its authority. Through these actions, it enables, incentivizes, and forces certain behaviors (e.g. saving for retirement through Social Security and Medicare, attending minimum years of school, getting vaccinated) in an effort to maintain or improve various key metrics related to American life.

Raising and spending money

Our Government raises money through taxes and non-tax sources, including businesses it runs. This money is used to pay government expenditures and to transfer money to individuals and others. At the federal level, when the money raised is not sufficient to cover the money spent (most years), the US Department of the Treasury may borrow money to finance the difference. States may borrow funds for projects but may not borrow to fund annual deficits, except Vermont, where its constitution does not preclude it from doing so.

Exercising authority

Our Government exercises its authority directly by regulating, legislating, and issuing executive orders and court orders. It also grants authority to, and rescinds it from, government agencies and state and local governments.

See more at Government operations below.

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About this report, government structure, explore the 2021 government 10-k, introduction, item 1a. risk factors, item 2. properties, item 3. legal proceedings, item 6. selected financial data, item 7. management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations, item 7a. quantitative and qualitative disclosures about market risk, item 8. financial statements and supplementary data, item 9a. controls and procedures, item 10. executive officers and governance, item 11. executive officer compensation, item 13. certain relationships and related transactions, and director independence, item 15. exhibits, sign up for the newsletter.

What If We Wrote the Constitution Today?

Proposals from libertarian, conservative, and progressive scholars displayed a few striking differences—but also some profound similarities.

An illustration of the Constitution with scribbles

As the world’s oldest written constitution, the U.S. Constitution has been remarkably resilient. For more than 230 years, it has provided the foundation for America’s economic prosperity, political stability, and democratic debate. But during the past two centuries, changes in politics, technology, and values have led many to assume that if Americans set out to write a new Constitution today, the document would be quite different. To find out what a new Constitution might look like, my colleagues and I at the National Constitution Center recently asked three teams of scholars—conservative, progressive, and libertarian— to draft new Constitutions for the United States of America in 2020 from scratch .

The results surprised us. As expected, each of the three teams highlights different values: The team of conservatives emphasizes Madisonian deliberation; the progressives, democracy and equality; and the libertarians, unsurprisingly, liberty. But when the groups delivered their Constitutions— which are published here —all three proposed to reform the current Constitution rather than abolish it.

From the October 2020 issue: The flawed genius of the Constitution

Even more unexpectedly, they converge in several of their proposed reforms, focusing on structural limitations on executive power rather than on creating new rights. All three teams agree on the need to limit presidential power, explicitly allow presidential impeachments for non-criminal behavior, and strengthen Congress’s oversight powers of the president. And, more specifically, the progressive and conservative teams converge on the need to elect the president by a national popular vote (the libertarians keep the Electoral College); to resurrect Congress’s ability to veto executive actions by majority vote; and to adopt 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. The unexpected areas of agreement suggest that, underneath the country’s current political polarization, there may be deep, unappreciated consensus about constitutional principles and needed reforms.

The conservative team, composed of Robert P. George of Princeton, Michael W. McConnell of Stanford, Colleen A. Sheehan of Arizona State, and Ilan Wurman of Arizona State , focuses on structural reforms designed to improve the country’s political discourse . Many of their proposed changes, they write, “are designed to enable elected officials to break free of the grip of faction and once again to deliberate, with the aim of listening attentively to, as well as educating, public opinion, and promoting justice and the public good.” The changes they describe as most “radical” are reducing the size of the Senate to 50 members to encourage genuine deliberation, increasing senatorial terms to nine years and the presidential term to six years—both with no possibility of reelection—and (in a proposal the libertarian team also put forward) reintroducing senatorial appointment by state legislatures. In their view, these reforms would encourage elected officials to vote their conscience and focus on the common good rather than partisan interests.

The progressive team, composed of Caroline Fredrickson of Georgetown University, Jamal Greene of Columbia, and Melissa Murray of New York University , also finds much to admire and preserve in the original constitutional structure. “We wanted to make clear our own view that the Constitution, as drafted in 1787, is not completely incompatible with progressive constitutionalism,” they write. “Indeed, in our view, the original Constitution establishes a structure of divided government that is a necessary precondition for a constitutional democracy with robust protections for individual rights.” The goal, in their proposed changes, is to secure the blessings of liberty and equality promised by the Declaration of Independence, by doing more to strengthen the “structural protections for democratic government.” Rather than abolish the Senate, the progressive team would make it more representative, with one senator for each state and “one additional senator [for] every one-hundredth of the national population.” For example, California would have 13 senators, Texas would have seven, Florida nine, and 22 states (including Washington, D.C.) one. Senators would serve for one six-year term. The progressives would also decrease fundraising pressure on representatives by extending the House term from two to four years, and by making clear that the government has the power to set both spending and contribution limits in political campaigns. Their proposed Progressive Constitution would also codify judicial and legislative protections for reproductive rights and against discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and childbirth.

The authors of the proposed Libertarian Constitution — Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, Timothy Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute, and Christina Mulligan of Brooklyn Law School — emphasize their intent to clarify the original Constitution, not replace it. “At the outset,” they write, “we joked that all we needed to do was to add ‘and we mean it’ at the end of every clause.” Their particular focus is resurrecting limitations on the commerce clause. Since the New Deal era, the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause to grant Congress essentially unlimited power to regulate anything that might have a tangential effect on interstate commerce. The libertarians would allow regulation only of actual interstate commerce, not of noncommercial activity that takes place within one state. They would also limit federal power in other ways, requiring all federal regulations to be related to powers enumerated in the Constitution and prohibiting the federal government from using its powers of the purse to influence state policies. Like the conservative team, the libertarians would return the selection of senators to the states, in the hope of promoting federalism. The libertarians also include a series of other restrictions on state and federal power to protect economic liberty, such as limiting the states from passing rent-control or price-control laws, prohibiting the states and the federal government from subsidizing corporations, providing for a rescission of national laws by a two-thirds vote of the states, and requiring a balanced federal budget.

Jeffrey Rosen: The fourth battle for the Constitution

Although all three Constitutions maintain a balance between state and federal power, the main differences among them concern how they strike that balance, with the libertarians imposing the greatest restrictions on federal power and the progressives the least. (In this respect, their debates resemble those of the original Framers in Philadelphia.) But, strikingly, all three Constitutions embrace structural reforms to ensure that the balance among presidential, congressional, and judicial power is closer to what the original Constitution envisioned, with all three branches checking each other, rather than an imperial president and judiciary checking a passive and polarized Congress.

Most notably, all three Constitutions seek significant limits on executive power. The three teams all clarify that the president’s power to execute the law is not a freestanding power to make laws: The conservatives emphasize that executive orders don’t have legal effect unless authorized by Congress; the libertarians underscore “that the power of the executive branch constitutes the power to ‘execute the laws’ and not some broader, freestanding power”; and the progressives propose that “Congress’s oversight authority over the executive branch must be made more explicit to ensure it can effectively police wrongdoing in program administration or otherwise.” To increase Congress’s oversight powers over the president, both the Conservative and Progressive Constitutions would resurrect the so-called legislative veto, which the Supreme Court struck down in 1982, allowing Congress to repudiate presidential regulations and executive orders by majority vote. For both teams, the resurrection of the legislative veto would allow Congress to take the lead in lawmaking, as the Framers intended.

Along the same lines, all three Constitutions would relax the standards for impeachment, making explicit that the president can be impeached for non-criminal offenses. At the same time, both the Conservative and Progressive Constitutions would require a three-fifths vote in the House, to reduce the risk of partisan impeachments. The conservatives also note that “it is generally improper for the President personally to direct prosecutions” and that “the President may not pardon himself or the Vice President.” The progressives include other reforms, such as requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate for the confirmation of the attorney general, “to ensure that the law enforcement power of the federal government is not abused for partisan gain.”

On the election of the president, the conservatives and progressives once again converge on nearly the same language, with both teams providing that the president shall “be elected by a national popular vote conducted using a ranked-choice voting method.” While agreeing that the Electoral College system for choosing among candidates is not democratic enough, the conservatives believe that the system for selecting candidates undervalues experience and character; therefore, they would abandon the presidential primary system, allowing presidential candidates to be selected by elected representatives at the state level. Resurrecting a proposal that was nearly adopted at the original Constitutional Convention, the conservatives would also limit presidents to a single six-year term, to encourage them to focus not on reelection but on the common good.

Finally, there is the Supreme Court. Once again, the conservative and progressive teams agree, this time on the need for 18-year term limits for justices. And the libertarians leave the question of Court terms open (their team’s leader, Ilya Shapiro, recently endorsed limits in his new book, Supreme Disorder ) , but they decide not to propose them, in the spirit of avoiding what they call purely “good government” reforms, without clear libertarian salience. This convergence suggests that if President-elect Joe Biden does, in fact, convene a commission to examine judicial reform, term limits for justices will be a proposal that has the potential for broad cross-partisan support.

Read: No other Western democracy allows this

It is on the subject of rights, rather than constitutional structures, that disagreements among the three teams really emerged. All three teams maintain and even strengthen most of the existing provisions of the Bill of Rights (the libertarians and progressives even update the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures for a digital age). However, each Constitution also adds provisions about rights that reflect the teams’ unique concerns. For example, the progressives try to increase democracy and reduce judicial power by providing that all rights are subject “to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” By contrast, the libertarians create the opposite presumption for courts to apply in evaluating claims about rights, emphasizing that whenever government infringes on the presumption of liberty, “courts shall determine whether that government has constitutional authority for its action and a genuine justification for its restriction or regulation.”

The three teams also strongly disagree about how to strike the balance between liberty and regulation when it comes to the First Amendment rights of speech and religion. All teams would include explicit protections for freedom of conscience, but they define it in different ways. The Conservative Constitution declares, “All persons have the inalienable right to the free exercise of religion in accordance with conscience,” but, like the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, makes clear that the free exercise of religion cannot be impeded “except where necessary to secure public peace and order or comparably compelling public ends.” The Libertarian Constitution emphasizes that “the freedoms of speech and conscience include the freedom to make contributions to political campaigns or candidates for public office.” The Progressive Constitution, by contrast, provides that “everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” but emphasizes that “Congress and the legislature of any State shall … have the power to establish by law regulations of the financing of campaigns for elected office, provided that such regulations are reasonably aimed at ensuring that all citizens are able to participate in elections meaningfully and on equal terms.” In the three Constitutions, as on the Court today, the progressives diverge from the conservatives and libertarians on campaign-finance restrictions and on religious exemptions from generally applicable laws.

Another divergence is on the topic of gun rights. Unsurprisingly, the conservative team proposes a Constitution that clearly recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms “ordinarily used for self-defense or recreational purposes,” but it does allow for the federal and state governments to pass “reasonable regulations on the bearing of arms, and the keeping of arms by persons determined, with due process, to be dangerous to themselves or others.” The progressive proposal, by contrast, does not explicitly recognize an individual’s right to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, but emphasizes, like the conservatives, that gun ownership is “subject to reasonable regulation.” The libertarian version alone contains no provisions for the regulation of gun rights, stating unequivocally, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

I don’t want to understate the philosophical and practical disagreements among the three Constitutions: The libertarians’ emphasis on liberty leads to a much more constricted version of federal power to regulate the economy, for example, than either the progressives or the conservatives, who want to restore Congress’s primary role in making laws and checking the president. But the areas of agreement—reining in presidential power and reducing partisanship in Congress—are far more surprising than the areas of disagreement.

The most striking similarity is that all three teams choose to reform the Constitution rather than replace it. And all three focus their reform efforts on structural and institutional protections for liberty and equality rather than creating a laundry list of new rights. As Shapiro put it in a recent interview about the project , “Why start from scratch when we can build on James Madison’s genius?”

This story is part of the project “ The Battle for the Constitution ,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center .

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US government and civics

Course: us government and civics   >   unit 1.

  • Separation of powers and checks and balances

Principles of American government

  • Federalist No. 51
  • Multiple points of influence due to separation of powers and checks and balances
  • Impeachment
  • Principles of American government: lesson overview
  • The Framers of the US Constitution structured the government so that the three branches have separate powers. The branches must both cooperate and compete to enact policy.
  • Each of the branches has the power to check the other two, which ensures that no one branch can become too powerful and that government as a whole is constrained.
  • This structure ensures that the people’s will is represented by allowing citizens multiple access points to influence public policy, and permitting the removal of officials who abuse their power.

The structure of US government: separation of powers

  • (Choice A)   The ability of the president to veto legislation and the judicial branch to declare laws unconstitutional A The ability of the president to veto legislation and the judicial branch to declare laws unconstitutional
  • (Choice B)   State governments and the federal government have exclusive and concurrent powers B State governments and the federal government have exclusive and concurrent powers
  • (Choice C)   Parts of government act independently from each other and have different responsibilities C Parts of government act independently from each other and have different responsibilities

The structure of US government: checks and balances

  • (Choice A)   Each branch of government acts independently of the other two in order to control the effects of factions A Each branch of government acts independently of the other two in order to control the effects of factions
  • (Choice B)   The branches of government must agree on a balanced budget before they proceed with policymaking B The branches of government must agree on a balanced budget before they proceed with policymaking
  • (Choice C)   Each branch of government has the ability to strongly influence or stop the actions of the other two C Each branch of government has the ability to strongly influence or stop the actions of the other two

What’s important about separation of powers and checks and balances?

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How Relevant Is the Constitution to Our Government Today? Essay

The Constitution is the fundamental document following which the entire state functions, its most necessary aspects. Thanks to this document, the United States was finally settled in the form that the state has at the moment. On the one hand, the importance of such a text cannot be denied because, without it, the current United States could not exist. However, this document is more than 200 years old. Given how much the surrounding world has changed over the years, the question arises: does the Constitution retain its relevance in a modern government? From my point of view, even despite the extended period, the basis of this text is still relevant even in the modern world. First of all, it is worth noting that the Constitution should be considered together with all 27 amendments that are currently in place. The original text of the Constitution was not perfect, and not even all delegates were ready to sign this document due to the lack of a bill of rights (“The Constitution,” n.d.). However, through the joint work of politicians and philosophers, additional rights were formed, which people still refer to to this day.

For example, the first amendment provides the protection of freedom of speech and press, facts that remain relevant to this day, especially in the light of certain scandalous events. In addition, the importance of the Constitution and its relevance to government is expressed in the preamble, which refers to the guarantees of justice and order and the protection of freedom. Naturally, this document is not ideal, but it was not meant to be such. Even Dr. Franklin admitted mistakes in the text but hoped for a better society and future improvements (“The importance of Constitution Day,” n.d.). Thus, much of the Constitution is still relevant today, and the government should endeavor to implement it as diligently as it did during its creation. However, it should be noted that recently some actions of the government and authorities have run counter to the fundamental principles of the country. Nevertheless, the problem lies not in the relevance of the Constitution to power, since the document is correct, but in the government’s failure to comply with some of its provisions, which generates injustice and infringement of freedoms.

The Constitution (n.d.). The White House. 2021, Web.

The importance of Constitution Day (n.d.). New England Law. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, August 21). How Relevant Is the Constitution to Our Government Today? https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-relevant-is-the-constitution-to-our-government-today/

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IvyPanda . 2022. "How Relevant Is the Constitution to Our Government Today?" August 21, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-relevant-is-the-constitution-to-our-government-today/.

1. IvyPanda . "How Relevant Is the Constitution to Our Government Today?" August 21, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-relevant-is-the-constitution-to-our-government-today/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "How Relevant Is the Constitution to Our Government Today?" August 21, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-relevant-is-the-constitution-to-our-government-today/.

  • Purpose of Government and Preamble of Constitution
  • The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
  • Enron’s Corporate Scandalous Fall
  • "Scandalous" Behavior in Women's Films
  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
  • Two Constitutions: a Comparison
  • The United States Constitution
  • Aspects of the U.N. Charter and the US Constitution
  • The European Union Infringement Procedure
  • Montesquieu and the US Constitution
  • Should the Government Control the Economy?
  • Current Distribution of Power in the International System
  • How to Make People Who Support Democrats Believe in Aliens
  • Civil Society and Political Accountability in Samoa
  • Memorandum To The King of Saudi Arabia

our government today essay

The Foundations of American Government

our government today essay

Are people good or evil? Your answer probably depends on how you have seen people around you behave. If you have studied history, the answer might further depend on what you think of past wars, as well as how people manage to live alongside one another in peace. People can be both hateful and noble, can’t they? James Madison, an ardent student of political philosophy , put it this way:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. (James Madison, Federalist No. 51)

Madison, along with others who had experienced the British government’s violation of the traditional rights of Englishmen in the years leading to America’s independence, looked to the lessons of human nature and history to determine how best to structure a competent government that would promote liberty.

James madison option3

If you were asked to establish a new government for you and your neighbors, the rules you would make – and the amount of power you would give to future government officials – would probably depend on how much you trust people to behave well. The problem is that people are capable of doing many wonderful things, but history also shows that otherwise peaceful citizens can be persuaded to allow – or even join in – the use of government to abuse others. For example, after five centuries of British monarchs (mostly) recognizing such traditional rights as protection of property rights and trial by jury, the three King Georges in succession began to rule the colonies by fiat. The Declaration of Independence listed specific violations committed by King George III. Among other abuses, he dissolved colonial legislatures, depriving colonists of the right of representation. He made judges dependent on his will alone, leading to the corruption of justice. He deprived Americans of fair jury trials. He stationed standing armies in the colonies in times of peace and required colonists to provide room and board for them. He imposed taxes without representation. He cut off their trade with foreign countries. The majority in Parliament approved these policies. Seeking to offset the debt accumulated during the French and Indian War, Parliament passed a number of measures which the colonies viewed as blatant violations of traditional liberties of Englishmen. In his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense , the British revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” The time had come to cut ties with the mother country and become free and independent states. How to design a system that would “first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself” was the challenge the American Founders faced.

The prevailing view through times past had been that powerful rulers of noble upbringing were needed to keep people from falling back into the tribal warfare that stains much of human history. They believed not only that kings were fit to rule people, but also that God himself gave monarchs that authority – a concept known as “divine right of kings.” The reasoning was that God could have given anybody the right to rule, and He selected the specific people who should govern others.

2 common sense

In his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, the British revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

The American Founders – and the American people generally – did not trust a king. They had seen kings behave like spoiled children, destroying businesses they disliked and imprisoning people without just cause. The world was changing, with new inventions making it possible for more and more people to work their way out of poverty. People needed not only to be free from fear of what kings might do to them, but to engage in commerce. The Founders believed that liberty was essential to human progress, and that we all have inherent rights to make decisions about ourselves and our property – rights that not even a king has the authority to take away. As John Locke explained in his Second Treatise of Civil Government , the only legitimate government was one to which the people had given consent. The people themselves have a voice, and need not simply submit to rulers who violate their liberties. If there were no king, could the Founders settle on a pure democracy, in which the majority gets whatever it wants? The Founders rejected this solution, too. They believed history proved that democratic majorities often end up behaving like tyrants – abusing minorities, starting wars, and running up huge debts. As children they had learned about persuaders like the Greek orator and general Alcibiades, who enticed Athenians to wage a disastrous war with Sparta, and Gaius Flaminius Nepos, who violated the Roman constitution to win popularity with the masses. The tyranny of the majority, expressed through corrupt politicians, can happen anywhere, anytime.

History, the Founders believed, showed how otherwise decent people can be swayed by emotion, selfish impulses, and corrupt leaders to do terrible things to one another. The Founders worried that a democracy would become just another version of tyranny.

The point of government, as the Founders saw it, was to enable a people to live without fear of having their persons or property violated, to cooperate to govern themselves peacefully, and to repel foreign threats. Without government, the powerful would rule, and nobody’s rights would be secure. Philosophers like John Locke, who strongly influenced the Founders, argued that citizens form for themselves a “social contract” in which they sacrifice a small amount of their natural freedom to a government whose protection makes them more free to live their lives than would otherwise be possible. When government repeatedly violates this contract by taking more freedom than is necessary – and especially when it violates the rights that it was created to protect – the Founders believed that people have a right and duty to abolish and replace it with something better. That is precisely what they did when they declared independence from Great Britain.

The Founders knew that legitimate governing authority must be just. This did not mean that everybody gets an equal share of everything, but that everyone has the right to be treated equally and fairly by their government. While earlier generations defined nations by the power it takes to rule, the Founders were thinking about a nation of citizens, born with inalienable rights, who should only be governed by virtuous representatives accountable to the people. Earlier philosophers believed ruling authority came from an aristocracy, a military power, or from God.

The Founders believed legitimate ruling authority only comes from the citizens themselves.

Ch 1 john locke

But the Founders faced a dilemma: How to give people the power to control their government while also denying to them the power to use government to violate the rights of others. People, even though they frequently live and work alongside one another in harmony, can behave selfishly. It is human nature to pursue what we believe will make us wealthy, powerful, or popular – even to the point of harming others.

Worse still, we can convince ourselves that our bad behavior is actually virtuous. A thief, for example, might tell himself he has no choice, even as poorer people work to survive without stealing. A powerful politician may tell herself that slandering her opponent is excused by all the good she will do once she is elected. People are clever. We are good at justifying our actions – especially to ourselves

The Founders’ challenge, as they built on their experience with a national government under the Articles of Confederation, which many considered too weak, was to establish a government that was not so powerful that people could use it to pursue their own interests at the expense of other people’s rights. As a result, they settled on what is called a constitutional republic .

It was an ingenious solution. Our Constitution’s authors sought to leverage for the common good people’s natural inclinations toward ambition and self-interest. That is why they divided our government’s power between executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It is also why they split Congress into two bodies. They gave members of the House of Representatives smaller districts and shorter terms so they would keep the desires of their constituents first and foremost. But they balanced this more democratic body with Senators who represent entire states, for longer terms, with the expectation that they would therefore have the freedom to make decisions that they considered right even when they were not popular. The Founders gave this Congress the power to make laws, but gave the power of administering those laws to the president and the executive branch. Separate from these was the Supreme Court, its members appointed by the president but with the Senate’s approval. In addition to splitting government power among three branches, the Founders also guarded against a concentration of power by dividing governing authority geographically. The national or central government would have carefully enumerated and limited powers, and all other functions that the people wanted their government to have would be left to state and local decision-making. The significance of state authority is reflected in the manner by which the Constitution was ratified. It did not take effect until approved by nine of the thirteen states through conventions called specifically for that purpose. The Constitution was engineered so that the competing ambitions of government officials – as well as the competing ambitions of different branches and levels of government – would work to form a system of checks and balances.

Founding fathers

If all government power rested with just a few people, these few might begin to abuse other’s rights. But because the Constitution spreads government power among many people, and sets up those powers so that they are “checks” on one another, natural self-interest works in favor of “We, the people.” In this way, ambition – properly exercised – becomes a useful tool for the preservation of rights.

Equally important with these checks and balances, however, is the principle expressed in the Preamble of the Constitution itself. “We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Founders knew that all legitimate government authority comes from the citizens. That is why the Constitution is written as a narrow list of government powers. The first eight amendments, meanwhile, make especially clear the kinds of things the federal government is not allowed to do. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments emphasize that rights and powers not listed remain with the states and people.

The Founders tried to design a government that would protect citizens from tyrants and from the tyranny of unrestrained democracy, but they knew that a clever design would never be enough. They counted on citizens to embrace virtues like honesty, respect, humility, and personal responsibility. The American republic was designed to encourage and depend on those citizen virtues.

They also counted on people to be tolerant of one another’s differences and to act justly, standing up to attempts to violate people’s liberty or their right to their own property. Even though the Founders designed a government that harnesses human self-interest to check itself, they knew that freedom will always depend, ultimately, on the willingness of citizens to defend it. While the Founders expected government officials to keep an eye on one another, they knew it was even more important for citizens to keep an eye on government and to vote for capable and trustworthy officers. It is our responsibility to exercise vigilance and to refuse power to anyone who behaves as if the Constitution is not the law of the land. Effective government requires that the governed choose well.

Finally, the Founders expected citizens to be educated, to understand why freedom is important, and to have the wisdom to recognize when laws or ideas that sound good at first might cause long-term harm. John Adams noted that wisdom, knowledge, and virtue are essential to preserving freedom. Each generation must help cultivate these qualities in the next.

Related Content

our government today essay

The Declaration of Independence – Docs of Freedom

The Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in June of 1776. The Declaration announced to the world that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves independent sovereign states. It articulates the fundamental ideas that form the American Nation: All people are created free and equal and possess the same inherent, unalienable rights. This lesson plan includes six activities. The activities can be taught in sequence as a comprehensive overview of the Declaration of Independence or individual activities can be taught as stand-alone lessons.

our government today essay

Justice for All

By examining primary source documents, students will analyze the Founders’ concept of justice, liberty, and rights; where those concepts came from; and how they have changed over time.

our government today essay

The Constitution

In 1787, many Americans were concerned that the Articles of Confederation did not grant enough power to the central government to protect the rights of the people. Under the Articles, the national government was unable to regulate commerce, taxation, currency, treaties, and protect the rights of individuals and states. The states called a delegation to meet in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 and from that convention the new Constitution was born.

our government today essay

Equal and Inalienable Rights

All humans are born with equal inherent rights, but many governments do not protect people's freedom to exercise those rights. The way to secure inalienable rights, the Founders believed, was to consent to giving up a small amount of our freedom so that government has the authority to protect our rights. Freedom depends on citizens having the wisdom, courage, and sense of justice necessary to take action in choosing virtuous leaders, and in holding those leaders to their commitments.

our government today essay

Popular Sovereignty and the Consent of the Governed

The Founders believed that the government’s authority needed to come from the people. Under the reign of King George III, the colonists believed that they were deprived of their opportunity to consent to be governed by Parliament through representatives, and, therefore, the British could not force their laws upon the colonies. The Founders made sure to uphold this right in the American Constitution. The people, through their representatives at state ratification conventions, had to ratify the document in order for it to become law.

our government today essay

Rule of Law

The benefits of freedom are safest when officials cannot make arbitrary and unpredictable laws. The rule of law means that laws are stable, limited in scope, and applied to every citizen, including those who make them. Laws must be created in the open, according to clear rules, and must reflect the consent of the governed. Ultimately, the rule of law depends on people with the courage, self-reliance, and wisdom to make prudent decisions, and who have enough tolerance for others to let them live as they see fit.

  • 1.1 What is Government?
  • Introduction
  • 1.2 Who Governs? Elitism, Pluralism, and Tradeoffs
  • 1.3 Engagement in a Democracy
  • Review Questions
  • Critical Thinking Questions
  • Suggestions for Further Study
  • 2.1 The Pre-Revolutionary Period and the Roots of the American Political Tradition
  • 2.2 The Articles of Confederation
  • 2.3 The Development of the Constitution
  • 2.4 The Ratification of the Constitution
  • 2.5 Constitutional Change
  • 3.1 The Division of Powers
  • 3.2 The Evolution of American Federalism
  • 3.3 Intergovernmental Relationships
  • 3.4 Competitive Federalism Today
  • 3.5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Federalism
  • 4.1 What Are Civil Liberties?
  • 4.2 Securing Basic Freedoms
  • 4.3 The Rights of Suspects
  • 4.4 Interpreting the Bill of Rights
  • 5.1 What Are Civil Rights and How Do We Identify Them?
  • 5.2 The African American Struggle for Equality
  • 5.3 The Fight for Women’s Rights
  • 5.4 Civil Rights for Indigenous Groups: Native Americans, Alaskans, and Hawaiians
  • 5.5 Equal Protection for Other Groups
  • 6.1 The Nature of Public Opinion
  • 6.2 How Is Public Opinion Measured?
  • 6.3 What Does the Public Think?
  • 6.4 The Effects of Public Opinion
  • 7.1 Voter Registration
  • 7.2 Voter Turnout
  • 7.3 Elections
  • 7.4 Campaigns and Voting
  • 7.5 Direct Democracy
  • 8.1 What Is the Media?
  • 8.2 The Evolution of the Media
  • 8.3 Regulating the Media
  • 8.4 The Impact of the Media
  • 9.1 What Are Parties and How Did They Form?
  • 9.2 The Two-Party System
  • 9.3 The Shape of Modern Political Parties
  • 9.4 Divided Government and Partisan Polarization
  • 10.1 Interest Groups Defined
  • 10.2 Collective Action and Interest Group Formation
  • 10.3 Interest Groups as Political Participation
  • 10.4 Pathways of Interest Group Influence
  • 10.5 Free Speech and the Regulation of Interest Groups
  • 11.1 The Institutional Design of Congress
  • 11.2 Congressional Elections
  • 11.3 Congressional Representation
  • 11.4 House and Senate Organizations
  • 11.5 The Legislative Process
  • 12.1 The Design and Evolution of the Presidency
  • 12.2 The Presidential Election Process
  • 12.3 Organizing to Govern
  • 12.4 The Public Presidency
  • 12.5 Presidential Governance: Direct Presidential Action
  • 13.1 Guardians of the Constitution and Individual Rights
  • 13.2 The Dual Court System
  • 13.3 The Federal Court System
  • 13.4 The Supreme Court
  • 13.5 Judicial Decision-Making and Implementation by the Supreme Court
  • 14.1 State Power and Delegation
  • 14.2 State Political Culture
  • 14.3 Governors and State Legislatures
  • 14.4 State Legislative Term Limits
  • 14.5 County and City Government
  • 15.1 Bureaucracy and the Evolution of Public Administration
  • 15.2 Toward a Merit-Based Civil Service
  • 15.3 Understanding Bureaucracies and their Types
  • 15.4 Controlling the Bureaucracy
  • 16.1 What Is Public Policy?
  • 16.2 Categorizing Public Policy
  • 16.3 Policy Arenas
  • 16.4 Policymakers
  • 16.5 Budgeting and Tax Policy
  • 17.1 Defining Foreign Policy
  • 17.2 Foreign Policy Instruments
  • 17.3 Institutional Relations in Foreign Policy
  • 17.4 Approaches to Foreign Policy
  • A | Declaration of Independence
  • B | The Constitution of the United States
  • C | Federalist Papers #10 and #51
  • D | Electoral College Map
  • E | Selected Supreme Court Cases

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Explain what government is and what it does
  • Identify the type of government in the United States and compare it to other forms of government

Government affects all aspects of people’s lives. What we eat, where we go to school, what kind of education we receive, how our tax money is spent, and what we do in our free time are all affected by government. Americans are often unaware of the pervasiveness of government in their everyday lives, and many are unsure precisely what it does. Here we will look at what government is, what it does, and how the government of the United States differs from other kinds of governments.

DEFINING GOVERNMENT

The term government describes the means by which a society organizes itself and how it allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals and provide benefits that the society as a whole needs. Among the goals that governments around the world seek to accomplish are economic prosperity, secure national borders, and the safety and well-being of citizens. Governments also provide benefits for their citizens. The type of benefits provided differ according to the country and their specific type of governmental system, but governments commonly provide such things as education, health care, and an infrastructure for transportation. The term politics refers to the process of gaining and exercising control within a government for the purpose of setting and achieving particular goals, especially those related to the division of resources within a nation.

Sometimes governmental systems are confused with economic systems . This is because certain types of political thought or governmental organization are closely related to or develop with certain types of economic systems. For example, the economic system of capitalism in Western Europe and North America developed at roughly the same time as ideas about democratic republics, self-government, and natural rights. At this time, the idea of liberty became an important concept. According to John Locke , an English political philosopher of the seventeenth century, all people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. From this came the idea that people should be free to consent to being governed. In the eighteenth century, in Great Britain’s North American colonies, and later in France, this developed into the idea that people should govern themselves through elected representatives and not a king; only those representatives chosen by the people had the right to make laws to govern them.

Similarly, Adam Smith , a Scottish philosopher who was born nineteen years after Locke’s death, believed that all people should be free to acquire property in any way that they wished. Instead of being controlled by government, business, and industry, Smith argued, people should be allowed to operate as they wish and keep the proceeds of their work. Competition would ensure that prices remained low and faulty goods disappeared from the market. In this way, businesses would reap profits, consumers would have their needs satisfied, and society as a whole would prosper. Smith discussed these ideas, which formed the basis for industrial capitalism, in his book The Wealth of Nations , which was published in 1776, the same year that the Declaration of Independence was written.

Representative government and capitalism developed together in the United States, and many Americans tend to equate democracy , a political system in which people govern themselves, with capitalism. In theory, a democratic government promotes individualism and the freedom to act as one chooses instead of being controlled, for good or bad, by government. Capitalism, in turn, relies on individualism. At the same time, successful capitalists prefer political systems over which they can exert at least some influence in order to maintain their liberty.

Democracy and capitalism do not have to go hand in hand, however. Indeed, one might argue that a capitalist economic system might be bad for democracy in some respects. Although Smith theorized that capitalism would lead to prosperity for all, this has not necessarily been the case. Great gaps in wealth between the owners of major businesses, industries, and financial institutions and those who work for others in exchange for wages exist in many capitalist nations. In turn, great wealth may give a very small minority great influence over the government—a greater influence than that held by the majority of the population, which will be discussed later.

Socialism is an alternative economic system. In socialist societies, the means of generating wealth, such as factories, large farms, and banks, are owned by the government and not by private individuals. The government accumulates wealth and then redistributes it to citizens, primarily in the form of social programs that provide such things as free or inexpensive health care, education, and childcare. In socialist countries, the government also usually owns and controls utilities such as electricity, transportation systems like airlines and railroads, and telecommunications systems. In many socialist countries the government is an oligarchy : only members of a certain political party or ruling elite can participate in government. For example, in China, the government is run by members of the Chinese Communist Party.

In the United States, the democratic government works closely together with its capitalist economic system. The interconnectedness of the two affects the way in which goods and services are distributed. The market provides many goods and services needed by Americans. For example, food, clothing, and housing are provided in ample supply by private businesses that earn a profit in return. These goods and services are known as private goods . 1 People can purchase what they need in the quantity in which they need it. This, of course, is the ideal. In reality, those who live in poverty cannot always afford to buy ample food and clothing to meet their needs, or the food and clothing that they can afford to buy in abundance is of inferior quality. Also, it is often difficult to find adequate housing; housing in the most desirable neighborhoods—those that have low crime rates and good schools—is often too expensive for poor or working-class (and sometimes middle-class) people to buy or rent.

Thus, the market cannot provide everything (in enough quantity or at low enough costs) in order to meet everyone’s needs. Therefore, some goods are provided by the government. Such goods or services that are available to all without charge are called public goods . Two such public goods are national security and education. It is difficult to see how a private business could protect the United States from attack. How could it build its own armies and create plans for defense and attack? Who would pay the men and women who served? Where would the intelligence come from? Due to its ability to tax, draw upon the resources of an entire nation, and compel citizen compliance, only government is capable of protecting the nation.

Similarly, public schools provide education for all children in the United States. Children of all religions, races and ethnicities, socioeconomic classes, and levels of academic ability can attend public schools free of charge from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. It would be impossible for private schools to provide an education for all of the nation’s children. Private schools do provide some education in the United States; however, they charge tuition, and only those parents who can afford to pay their fees (or whose children gain a scholarship) can attend these institutions. Some schools charge very high tuition, the equivalent to the tuition at a private college. If private schools were the only educational institutions, most poor and working-class children and many middle-class children would be uneducated. Private schooling is a type of good called a toll good . Toll goods are available to many people, and many people can make use of them, but only if they can pay the price. They occupy a middle ground between public and private goods. All parents may send their children to public schools in the United States. They can choose to send their children to a private school, but the private school will charge them. On the other hand, public schools, which are operated by the government, provide free education so all children can attend school. Therefore, everyone in the nation benefits from the educated voters and workers produced by the public school system. Another distinction between public and private goods is that public goods are available to all, typically without additional charge.

What other public goods does government provide in the United States? At the federal, state, and local level, government provides stability and security, not only in the form of a military but also in the form of police and fire departments. Government provides other valuable goods and services such as public education, public transportation, mail service, and food, housing, and health care for the poor ( Figure 1.2 ). If a house catches on fire, the fire department does not demand payment before they put the fire out. If someone breaks into a house and tries to harm the occupants, the police will try to protect them and arrest the intruder, but the police department will not request payment for services rendered. The provision of these goods and services is funded by citizens paying into the general tax base.

Government also performs the important job of protecting common goods : goods that all people may use free of charge but that are of limited supply, such as fish in the sea or clean drinking water. Because everyone can use these goods, they must be protected so a few people do not take everything that is available and leave others with nothing. Some examples of common goods, private goods, public goods, and toll goods are listed below ( Figure 1.3 ).

Link to Learning

This federal website shares information about the many services the government provides.

Finding a Middle Ground

Fishing regulations.

One of the many important things government does is regulate public access to common goods like natural resources. Unlike public goods, which all people may use without charge, common goods are in limited supply. If more public schools are needed, the government can build more. If more firefighters or mail carriers are needed, the government can hire them. Public lands and wildlife, however, are not goods the government can simply multiply if supply falls due to demand. Indeed, if some people take too freely from the supply of common goods, there will not be enough left for others to use.

Fish are one of the many common goods in which the government currently regulates access. It does so to ensure that certain species are not fished into extinction, thus depriving future generations of an important food source and a means to make a living. This idea is known as sustainability. Environmentalists want to set strict fishing limits on a variety of species. Commercial fishers resist these limits, claiming they are unnecessary and, if enforced, would drive them out of business ( Figure 1.4 ). Currently, fishing limits are set by a combination of scientists, politicians, local resource managers, and groups representing the interests of fishers. 3

Should the government regulate fishing? Is it right to interfere with people’s ability to earn money today in order to protect the access of future generations to the nation’s common goods?

Besides providing stability and goods and services for all, government also creates a structure by which goods and services can be made available to the people. In the United States, people elect representatives to city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. These bodies make laws to govern their respective jurisdictions. They also pass measures to raise money, through the imposition of taxes on such things as income, property, and sales. Local, state, and national governments also draft budgets to determine how the revenue taken in will be spent for services. On the local level, funds are allotted for education, police and fire departments, and maintenance of public parks. State governments allocate money for state colleges and universities, maintenance of state roads and bridges, and wildlife management, among other priorities. On the national level, money goes to such things as defense, Social Security, pensions for veterans, maintenance of federal courts and prisons, and management of national parks. At each level, representatives elected by the people try to secure funding for things that will benefit those who live in the areas they represent. Once money has been allocated, government agencies at each level then receive funds for the purposes mentioned above and use them to provide services to the public.

Local, state, and national governments also make laws to maintain order and to ensure the efficient functioning of society, including the fair operation of the business marketplace. In the United States, for example, Congress passes laws regulating banking, and government agencies regulate such things as the amount of toxic gases that can be emitted by factories, the purity of food offered for sale, and the safety of toys and automobiles. In this way, government checks the actions of business, something that it would not do if capitalism in the United States functioned strictly in the manner that Adam Smith believed it should…almost entirely unregulated.

Besides providing goods to citizens and maintaining public safety, most governments also provide a means for citizens to participate in government and to make their opinions known to those in power. Western democracies like the United States, Britain, France, and others protect citizens’ freedom of speech and the press. These nations, and others in the world, also allow citizens to vote.

As noted earlier, politics is the process by which choices are made regarding how resources will be allocated and which economic and social policies government will pursue. Put more simply, politics is the process of who gets what and how. Politics involves choosing which values government will support and which it will not. If government chooses to support an ideal such as individualism , it may choose to loosen regulations on business and industry or to cut taxes so that people have more money to invest in business. If it chooses to support an ideal such as egalitarianism , which calls for equal treatment for all and the destruction of socioeconomic inequalities, it may raise taxes in order to be able to spend more on public education, public transportation, housing for the poor, and care for the elderly. If, for example, the government is more concerned with national security than with individual liberty , it may authorize the tapping of people’s phones and restrict what newspapers may publish. If liberty is more important, then government will place greater restrictions on the extent that law enforcement agencies can intrude upon citizens’ private communications. The political process and the input of citizens help determine the answer.

Civic engagement, or the participation that connects citizens to government, is a vital ingredient of politics. In the United States, citizens play an important role in influencing what policies are pursued, what values the government chooses to support, what initiatives are granted funding, and who gets to make the final decisions. Political engagement can take many forms: reading about politics, listening to news reports, discussing politics, attending (or watching televised) political debates, donating money to political campaigns, handing out flyers promoting a candidate, voting, joining protest marches, and writing letters to their elected representatives.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF GOVERNMENT

The government of the United States can best be described as a republic, or representative democracy. A democracy is a government in which political power —influence over institutions, leaders, and policies—rests in the hands of the people. In a representative democracy , however, the citizens do not govern directly. Instead, they elect representatives to make decisions and pass laws on behalf of all the people. Thus, U.S. citizens vote for members of Congress, the president and vice president, members of state legislatures, governors, mayors, and members of town councils and school boards to act on their behalf. Most representative governments favor majority rule : the opinions of the majority of the people have more influence with government than those of the minority. If the number of elected representatives who favor a proposed law is greater than those who oppose it, the law will be enacted.

However, in representative governments like the United States, minority rights are protected: people cannot be deprived of certain rights even if an overwhelming number of people think that they should be. For example, let’s say American society decided that atheists, people who do not believe that God exists, were evil and should be imprisoned or expelled from the country. Even though atheists only account for about 7 percent of the population, they would be protected due to minority rights. 4 Even though the number of Americans who believe in God far outweighs the number who do not, the minority is still protected. Because decisions are made through majority rule, making your opinions known and voting for those men and women who make decisions that affect all of us are critical and influential forms of civic engagement in a representative democracy such as the United States.

In a direct democracy , unlike representative democracy, people participate directly in making government decisions. For example, in ancient Athens, the most famous example of a direct democracy, all male citizens were allowed to attend meetings of the Assembly. Here they debated and voted for or against all proposed laws. Although neither the federal government nor any of the state governments function as a direct democracy—the Constitution requires the national and state governments to be representative forms of government—some elements of direct democracy do exist in the United States. While residents of the different states vote for people to represent them and to make laws in their behalf in the state legislatures and in Congress, people may still directly vote on certain issues. For example, a referendum or proposed law might be placed on the ballot for citizens to vote on directly during state or local elections instead of leaving the matter in the hands of the state legislature. At New England town meetings, all residents are allowed to debate decisions affecting the town ( Figure 1.5 ). Such occasions provide additional opportunities for civic engagement.

Most countries now have some form of representative government. 5 At the other end of the political spectrum are elite-driven forms of government. In a monarchy , one ruler, usually a hereditary ruler, holds political power. Although the power of some monarchs is limited by law, and such kings and queens often rule along with an elected legislature that makes laws for the country, this is not always the case. Many southwest Asian kingdoms, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have absolute monarchs whose power is unrestricted. As discussed earlier, another nondemocratic form of government is oligarchy, in which a handful of elite members of society, often those who belong to a particular political party, hold all political power. For example, in Cuba, as in China, only members of the Communist Party are allowed to vote or hold public office, and the party’s most important members make all government decisions. Some nondemocratic societies are totalitarian in nature. Under totalitarianism , the government is more important than the citizens, and it controls all aspects of citizens’ lives. Citizens’ rights are limited, and the government does not allow political criticism or opposition. These forms of government are fairly rare. North Korea is an example of a totalitarian government.

The CIA website provides information about the types of government across the world.

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American government explain why in.

If the society puts the power to make laws in the hands of one man, then it is a monarchy. A mixed government combines forms of any of the described governments. 4. According to Locke, what is the 'social contract'? The social contract refers to the idea that people in a state of nature will willingly come together to form a state. People form a state to provide a neutral magistrate that can protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people of the state. Moreover, the power of the legislators are limited in the social contract, because their laws are only legitimate if they achieve a common good. 1. Read Federalist Papers #10, 51, and 78. Prepare a short summary of what they said. Federalist paper #10 addressed the issue of faction. In it, Madison (the assumed author) suggested two ways to limit faction: removing the causes of faction or controlling its….

American Government and Politics Today

The courts, therefore, plays a significant role in ensuring that there is uniformity in the decision on abortion in all states. It has been argued that this is undemocratic since the decision is made by justices who are not elected officials. In the situation where the ruling was to be overturned, the authority to legalize abortion would fall back to the states. This would reflect the majority opinion since the state legislators are elected through a democratic voting process. However, it would mean that there will be significant differences in the laws in conservative and prochoice states. This would mean that the women desiring to seek an abortion would simply need to cross state lines to obtain one which would have no effect on illegalizing abortion. States should not have their own say in the abortion laws as a result of this. Therefore, the courts play a huge role….

American Government How Does a Bill Become

American Government How does a bill become a law? Please explain where bills originate and how they go through the process. Also include information about the role of interest groups and political parties in bill formation. Before a piece of legislation can become a law, the initial proposal, called a bill, must go through a process of debate and approval by both houses of the United States Congress. The initial step is for the individual who comes up with the idea for a new law must present his or her suggestion to their colleagues (Egan 6). This person becomes the sponsor for that law as he or she was the initial supporter of that idea. More than one person can become the sponsor of a bill, showing their additional support of that bill. The proposed bill is then placed in the hopper. Once the bill is read and officially proposed in the….

Works Cited:

Camarota, Steven A. "The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal

Budget." 2004. Print.

Egan, Tracie (2004). How a Bill Becomes a Law. Rosen: New York, NY.

Ehrenberg, Steven (2011). "What's a Primary Election?" Scholastic.

American Government Question One Interest

" Then there are the "...5 million employees of the federal bureaucracy and the military" at his disposal. Also, the president runs the executive branch of government; Cummings writes that he is "chief of state" - the "ceremonial and symbolic head of state as well as head of government" (391) - as well as being "chief executive" of the government. He has the power to "grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States" (394), he has the power to declare war, and as Franklin Roosevelt showed during II (397), the president can "exercise extraordinary power over food rationing and the economy, only partly with congressional authorization." The president is the "Chief Diplomat" (Cummings, 398), the president has "sole power to negotiate and sign treaties" (399), the president "has the sole power to recognize or not recognize foreign governments" (400), and both the "arrows and the olive branch depicted in….

Works Cited

Burns, James MacGregor, & Peltason, Jack Walter. (1963). Government by the People: The Dynamics of American National, State, and Local Government. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:

Prentice-Hall.

CNN.com (2005). Report details FBI's missed opportunities before 9/11. Retrieved June 19, 2005 at  http://www.cnn.com .

Cummings, Milton C. Jr., & Wise, David. (1985). Democracy Under Pressure: An Introduction

American Government How Influential Are

" (Judith Evans 1996) Policy has also been defined as being: "A set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of these actors to achieve." (Jenkins, 199) Policymaking, or the formation of policies is stated to have two dimensions, which are: Dimension One: It is carried out by a specific set of actors; and Dimension Two: It is according to some specific type of process. The term "Ex-Ante V. Post-Hoc Policy" is definitive of the fact that policy is sometimes created in expectation that it will be a force that drives decisions and in fact preceding decisions and affecting the method and manner in which decisions are made. This view is in contrast with the view of policy as being the 'codification of experience'. The….

3. Theory of Multiple Elitism: This theory of power was acknowledge in the 1970's, which is centered on the work of Theodore Lowi, Jr. And Mancur Olson, Jr. that stressed the special interest rule problem.

4. Neo-Pluralism: The Neo-pluralist theory of the 1980's "which saw possibilities for effective representation for a widely share interests without assuming an equilibrium of democratic and fair representation.

Critics of interest group argue that some groups are easier organized than are others and argued further that smaller groups of corporation and economic

American Government Congress Is Structured

Every year, several thousand actions are referred to committees. Only a small percentage is selected for consideration, and those not addressed often receive no further action. Committees determine the fate of most proposed laws. According to some experts the committee system is the natural form of division of labor in such a large and complex body as the Congress (Overview: The Committee System in the U.S. Congress, 2009). Presently there are about 19 standing committees in the House, and 16 in the Senate. Standing committees work with specific bills, and most operate with subcommittees that handle a committee's work in certain areas. Select and joint committees are used for in between categories and housekeeping tasks. There are several joint committees which are made up of members of both houses of Congress. Each committee deals with specific issues. There are committees in the House that deal with education, science, national security,….

Congress. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2009, from Web site: http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/congress.htm

Overview: The Committee System in the U.S. Congress. (2009). Retrieved November 13, 2009,

from PBS Web site:

 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/@capitol/committees/committees_overview.html

American Government in Theoretical Discussions on Representation

American Government In theoretical discussions on representation, frequently a distinction is made between two roles of a representative i.e. between a role of a delegate or a trustee. The first refers to the representative role primarily being to transfer the desires of the constituents into the decision-making system. The idea is to some extent instrumentalist in the sense that the representative is in the first place a mean for the represented and the better the representation reflects the variety of preferences among the constituents the better the representative quality. Among the advantages with this conceptualisation is its invitation to continuous public participation. As the delegate holds the duty to vote for, and in other ways reflect the will of the constituents, this obligation is most likely to be best fulfilled when the constituency actively expresses its preferences. Actually in its extreme form, the representative in this conception is unable of acting in her….

Bibliography

Dennis F. Tompson (1987) Political Ethics and Public Office, Cambridge University Press: 99-102

Katherine Tate Black Faces in the Mirror:

African-Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress

American Government Members of Congress

his was the first time America had entered into colonialism, and they still have power over Guam and Puerto Rico today. It gave the country new respect in the world, and it created the need to create guidelines for governing and watching out for these colonies. his also shapes our policy today because we still have influence over these areas, and that indicates our power to other nations of the world. World War I changed Europe forever, and the United States, too. Woodrow Wilson tried to stay out of the war, but public opinion, and growing German influence around the world made Wilson declare war in 1917. After the war ended, President Wilson worked to promote the League of Nations, which was formed in 1919. he League of Nations would eventually evolve into the United Nations, and it hoped to prevent war through negotiation and arbitration. hey created many treaties….

Three key events that helped shape modern U.S. foreign policy were the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. The Spanish American War was between Spain and America in 1898. Cubans were revolting against their Spanish rule, and Americans heard reports of Spanish "atrocities" which were blown out of proportion by the newspapers. The American battleship "Maine" mysteriously sunk in Havana's harbor, and President William McKinley reluctantly declared war. America won the war in ten weeks, and they gained control of Cuba and indefinite colonial power over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. This was the first time America had entered into colonialism, and they still have power over Guam and Puerto Rico today. It gave the country new respect in the world, and it created the need to create guidelines for governing and watching out for these colonies. This also shapes our policy today because we still have influence over these areas, and that indicates our power to other nations of the world.

World War I changed Europe forever, and the United States, too. Woodrow Wilson tried to stay out of the war, but public opinion, and growing German influence around the world made Wilson declare war in 1917. After the war ended, President Wilson worked to promote the League of Nations, which was formed in 1919. The League of Nations would eventually evolve into the United Nations, and it hoped to prevent war through negotiation and arbitration. They created many treaties that dealt with social consequences and protection of people, and it helped show how influential the United States was in world affairs after the war. It helped increase our power and prestige, because we helped create the League, and it showed that the U.S. was interested in fostering a better world, especially in war-torn Europe. It shaped our future policy by establishing that we were interested in helping the world, and that we cared about peace and social consequences.

World War II established that the United States was a formidable opponent, and that we could dominate the world if we chose. It also showed the world again that we were compassionate and wanted peace, when we helped rebuild Europe and even flew in supplies during the Berlin Airlift. Our foreign policy toughened after this war, when the Soviet Union challenged us and our nuclear abilities, and it became clear to the world that we would not step down, we would hold our ground and defend ourselves, even as we grew far more influential and involved in foreign policy around the world.

American Government the Construction of

Since 1869, eight associate justices have complemented the Chief Justice, though this number is not set in stone. Congress has the right to manipulate the organization of the Supreme Court, and has over the years varied the number of associate justices from as few as six to as many as ten. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court has been originally applied to cases affecting ambassadors, public ministers, or any case in which a State is a party. Congress has also given the Supreme Court the authority to review any decision made in the lower federal courts and the highest courts of the States (Chambers 54). There are other courts in the federal system besides the Supreme Court. The 94 District Courts are the trial courts in which the majority of federal cases are first tried and decided. Each state in the Union, plus each territory like the District of Columbia….

Bully Pulpit." C-SPAN Congressional Glossary. 23 Nov. 2007  http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/bullypul.htm .

Chambers, Ann B. Our American Government. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

U.S. Civics: How the U.S. Government Works." History Central. 2000. 23 Nov. 2007  http://www.historycentral.com/Civics/index.html .

American Government Proposed Radical Policy

It is to encourage less consumption: that is all. Remember that during wartime, eggs, butter, sugar, coffee, and other products were rationed as well. ill the beef industry suffer? Of course -- but the sad truth is that if we continue as we are, Americans in the future will suffer far worse. Additionally, people in other agricultural-related industries will benefit from the ban because of increased consumption of other products. Another benefit may be in terms of human health. During wartime rationing, it was noted that "one surprising effect...was that the health of the nation actually improved as people ate a more balanced diet, less meat and fat and had more exercise (artime rationing, Body Soul and Spirit, 2008). High amounts of meat consumption have been linked to a number of cancers, including colorectal cancers, and just as the nation have striven to discourage consumption of other unhealthy carcinogenic substances, like….

Eisnen, Marc Michael Pollan Interview. The Progressive. November 2008. March 4, 2009.  http://www.progressive.org/mag/intv1108 

Jowit, Juliette. "UN says eat less meat to curb global warming." The Guardian.

September 7, 2007. March 4, 2009.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink 

Wartime rationing." Body Soul and Spirit. January 8, 2008. March 4, 2009.  http://bodysoulandspirit.blogspot.com/2008/01/war-time-rationing.html

American Government Should the President

Suppose I was asked to donate money to "Citizens for Better Schools," what would I need to find out about the group first? The first thing would be find out if they are a bona fide public charity -- a 501 C3 -- and if they were, I would examine their bylaws and mission statement. Secondly, I would locate board members and examine public statements they have made and projects they have injected themselves into. Something with a vague title like this one has could actually be a protest group trying to remove certain board members from the school board or they might be advocating to have the science textbooks changed so evolution isn't taught. I would also look through newspaper reports to find what the group has been advocating in its public pronouncements. Should journalists have the right to protect their sources? The answer is yes. One example relates to….

Department of Homeland Security. (2003). "Executive Order (EO-13284): Amendment of Executive Orders, and Other Actions, in Connection with the Establishment of the Department of Homeland Security." Retrieved March 11, 2012, from http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/press_release_0072.shtm.

Executive Order 9066. "The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation." Retrieved March 12,

2012, from  http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154 .

FindLaw. "Williams v. State of North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287 (1942)." Retrieved March 12,

American Government Response Summarizing the Readings In

American Government Response Summarizing the Readings: In his article "Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power," Peter oll discusses the administrative branch of the government and the various departments who are in control of the funds which keep federal and state governments working. The bureaucracy is a highly influential part of the government and has a degree of control over both the President and Congress with far fewer legal checks to their actions than either of these bodies has to deal with. It has proven difficult to find ways to limit the influence of the bureaucracy when the constitution does not clearly state an opinion on the matter; a serious problem since the constitution is the basis for all legislation in the country. And additional issue has been in trying to determine which branch should deal with administration. Alexander Hamilton believed this was the job of the president and the Executive branch of the….

"The Executive Branch." 204-28.

Wilson, James Q. "The Rise of the Bureaucratic State." The Bureaucracy. 298-302.

Woll, Peter. "Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power." The Bureaucracy. 302-310.

American Government & Institutions Should

S. Constitution. The court ruled, "Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the statutes and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California" (Dolan, 2012). Hence, the will of the people can become law through popular initiatives, but on the other hand, the argument can be made that if citizens object to the constitutional amendments enacted in any given state -- for any political or social issue -- they have the power of the judiciary to address grievances and sue to reverse the decision. But should citizens have the power to make public policy through initiatives and state constitutional amendments? Is direct democracy the answer for citizens that feel their elected officials are out of touch? This paper believes that passing propositions and altering state constitutions is indeed a way to bring the voter "…in closer touch with great affairs" and allow the voter to….

Dolan, Mura. "Prop. 8: Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional, Court Rules." Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved March 9, 2012, from  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com .

Levin, Daniel Lessard. Representing Popular Sovereignty: The Constitution in American

Political Culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999.

American Government and Politics the Impact of

American Government and Politics The Impact of Politics on People, Communities, and the World I have not personally been affected by American politics in ways that I can think of, possibly because I am not an American citizen. However, I understand that, in principle, political decisions can have extremely important affects on individuals. For example, if the Republicans win the presidential election and win back control of the enate and retain control of the House of Representatives, they could actually succeed in outlawing abortion and even many common forms of birth control. Politics also affects local and national communities because the decisions made in Washington determine what federal money is available to states for crucial functions such as education and health care programs. Because the United tates is the most influential nation in the world, political decisions in this country can affect all of the other nations in the world in terms….

Sources Consulted

Edwards, G., Wattenberg, M., and Lineberry, R. (2007). Government in America: People,

Politics, and Policy. New York: Longman.

Grunwald, M. "The Party of No." Time, Vol. 180, No. 10 (2012): 42 -- 46.

Government and Elections Should foreign interest groups be banned from attempting to influence the course of American government? Are foreign interest groups always opposed to the interests of U.S. companies and citizens? It is reported in the work of Benen 2010) that a speech delivered by President Obama warned of "corporate takeover of our democracy" in the form of "shadowy groups raising millions in secret to help buy elections for Republicans. Benen notes the publication of 'ThinkProgress' which states that the trade association "organized as a 501c)6)…the U.S. Chamber of Commerce…that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors…has promised to spend…" the amount of $75 million to defeat specific candidates including such as "Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP….

(4) authorize an agency to exercise a function not expressly authorized by law;

(5) increase the term of an office beyond the period authorized by law; (6) deal with more than one logically consistent subject matter; or (7) abolish enforcement functions or programs established by statues. (FAO, 2010)

These are only some of the actions that the President and government cannot take. The Constitution places limits on what government can do to protect the American public. This is because the forefathers understood that government should remain small rather than become the large bureaucratic machine that it presently is today. The present administration has sought to bypass Congress on many of its moves on restructuring the U.S. Government however as reported by the FAO (2010) "Congressional deliberative processes serve the vital function of both gaining input from a variety of clientele and stakeholders affected by any changes and providing an important constitutional check and counterbalance to the executive branch." Bypassing these governmental processes can results in too much power being vested in the President and his discretion. The Constitution provides for a system of checks and balances that serve to ensure that the Constitutional rights of the American people are not violated by the government in any of its actions or rulings.

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If the society puts the power to make laws in the hands of one man, then it is a monarchy. A mixed government combines forms of any of…

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The courts, therefore, plays a significant role in ensuring that there is uniformity in the decision on abortion in all states. It has been argued that this is…

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" Then there are the "...5 million employees of the federal bureaucracy and the military" at his disposal. Also, the president runs the executive branch of government; Cummings writes that…

" (Judith Evans 1996) Policy has also been defined as being: "A set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals…

Every year, several thousand actions are referred to committees. Only a small percentage is selected for consideration, and those not addressed often receive no further action. Committees determine…

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his was the first time America had entered into colonialism, and they still have power over Guam and Puerto Rico today. It gave the country new respect in…

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Since 1869, eight associate justices have complemented the Chief Justice, though this number is not set in stone. Congress has the right to manipulate the organization of the…

Research Proposal

Agriculture

It is to encourage less consumption: that is all. Remember that during wartime, eggs, butter, sugar, coffee, and other products were rationed as well. ill the beef industry suffer?…

Research Paper

Suppose I was asked to donate money to "Citizens for Better Schools," what would I need to find out about the group first? The first thing would be find…

Reaction Paper

American Government Response Summarizing the Readings: In his article "Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power," Peter oll discusses the administrative branch of the government and the various departments who are in control…

S. Constitution. The court ruled, "Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the statutes and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California"…

American Government and Politics The Impact of Politics on People, Communities, and the World I have not personally been affected by American politics in ways that I can think of, possibly…

Government and Elections Should foreign interest groups be banned from attempting to influence the course of American government? Are foreign interest groups always opposed to the interests of U.S. companies…

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Our Government Vs Today

“Times have changed. But the basic premise of the Constitution hasn’t changed. It’s still our blueprint for freedom” (Ronald Reagan). Our government today as many differences than previous governments. It also has some similarities. One example would be how in the 1600s and 1700s, the colonists would hold town meetings on local issues. We don’t have town meetings in our government today. Some differences between our government today and previous government, people had to request a charter for land, and today we don’t have to. Back then colonists had a king or queen to govern them. Today we don’t have a king or queen. Instead of kings and queens, today we have a president who doesn’t hold most of, or all of the power. Another difference is …show more content…

Then and now, the accused person on trial had randomly selected peers to make up the jury which later would come to a decision on whether the accused person was guilty or not. Even then and now, we have the option of impeaching someone out of our government system if they do something wrong. It might not be easy, but we still can do it. We were able to protest back then and we still can now. Our Bills Of Rights allow us to do so peacefully and non-violently. The passed English Bill of Rights back then allowed for power to be spread out like it is today. Not only one person holds the power in the government, but it is spread out between multiple people. This helps our government then and now be less of a dictatorship. Just like back then, we have more than one house like our House of Representatives and so forth. Back then, there was a House of Burgesses and even more than that too. The government from earlier times was a bicameral legislature which is almost like today. Today, we have the Judicial, Executive, and legislative branches in our government. Two of the branches are like the bicameral legislature then. The two branches like it are the legislative and executive branches. As you can see, there are many different and similar things between our government today and back in the 1600s and 1700s. I think our government has improved much from the precious systems of governments. Our government has made changes for the

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The Age Of Enlightenment And The American Government

The U.S government although created in the late 18th century incorporates ideas about government originating back to the early 11th century. The American Founders were influenced immensely by preceding government philosophy and authoritative documents. The Age of Enlightenment, specifically, was a period of political novelty and innovation leading to vast governmental and societal advancements. The American FOunders were part of the ENlightenment and adapted an abundance of the innovated ideas to formulate our government. Similarly, the principles established in the Magna Carta and English Bill of RIghts are paramount to the formation of the Constitution. Collectively they formulated concepts such as limited governments and challenged many dubious institutions and notions.

United States Constitution Analysis

The Constitution is the framework for today's modern US government (National, n.d.). "Defines the scope and limit of government power” (National, n.d., par. 2). The United States federal government today still follows the structure in the constitution. This shows that, as Adams said, "the three-and-a-half month convention (was) 'the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen” (Constitution, 2017, par. 4). "The United States Constitution has secured an unprecedented degree of human freedom, upholding the rule of law, securing the blessings of liberty, and providing the framework for the people of America to build a great, prosperous, and just nation unlike any other in the world" (Constitution, 2017, par. 1). Citizens in countries without a Bill of Rights like the United States’ don’t have the same freedoms as Americans. Without the Constitution, businesses would not run like they do today; schools could force beliefs on students; people wouldn’t be able to express themselves. Even though the Constitution is over 200 years old, it has retained its core values, while also adapting to the time (History, 2009). With a simple yet arduous process, the Constitution can be amended to stay with the times. There have been 27 amendments total to the United States Constitution. The first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, are the most famous. These freedoms in the

The Constitution: The Effect Of The Weak Articles Of Confederation

Following the affects of the weak Articles of Confederation set in place in 1777, a change in government was in order after the articles had proven their inability to control or tax the American people. The creation of The Constitution began a new era in American Government and set a new formation of laws and separation of power. The transition from the two very different systems of government was a turning point in American history and led to the type of Government we have to this day. After the Revolutionary War and America’s separation from England, it was now up to the American People to decide the kind of government they wanted. After winning the war, the last thing that they wanted, was to have another government that would abuse the

The Founding Fathers Of The United States Government

The Founding Fathers put their blood, sweat and tears into the making of the Constitution and created a government out of practically nothing, all while having a vision for the future. This future consisted of a government that focused on liberty over security; a government of minimal intervention. To say that the modern version of the United States government is exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned is a very debatable topic. There are many instances where todays government has followed the Constitution for the most part, but then there are a lot of other areas where the Founders visions have been twisted to the point that they are unrecognizable anymore. To start off, the basic concept of the United States government is one of checks and balances. This was put in place to ensure that the government never became too powerful. One very good example of checks and balances is the media. Even the founding fathers knew the extreme power of the media and its ability to keep the government in check. Two men by the names of William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were even able to create the Spanish American War by the process of yellow journalism, or the crude exaggeration of events. The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The government today reflects this belief that the media is a watchdog or “fourth estate” as it is so often referred to. Political parties and everything that comes with it, including

How Did George Washington Influence The Federal Government

After winning the Revolutionary War, the states faced the strenuous task of creating a national government that balanced federal powers with individual and state rights. The first endeavor resulted in the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation gave too much power to the states and not enough power to the federal government. The imbalance of power resulted in a weak national government. The Constitution replaced the feeble Articles with a powerful federal government that incorporated republican ideals. Under this new system of government George Washington and Thomas Jefferson established new procedures, laws, and policies that set the standards and structured the new government. The laws, policies, and actions of both George

Essay On The Articles Of Confederation

The government that our country operates under in modern times is quite different than the government in place at our country’s conception. However, they do share many of the same practices and ideologies. The Articles of Confederation were founded on the basis of a very limited national government, and the idea that states should interact with each other through a “loose league of friendship”. In this friendship, the states would work and trade together, but no form of central government was needed. This system was not nearly sufficient for the nations problems at the time. Recognizing the need for a reform, the nations leaders tried to reform the current system, and with little success, the decision was made that they should start

Ambiguity Of Constitution

Michael, I believe that we are sharing the same point of view. I am agree with you that there are several differences between what we are experiencing those day and what our constitution founders experience decades ago. I am sure that if they still alive, they will call for more amendments, which some of them seem rational. Like you said, the constitution has some of the weakness that must be taken into consideration. It is time for our legislators to make some actions that might clear some of our constitution’s ambiguity. Like I mentioned above, everything is changing. For instance, the technology that we use a decade ago becomes updated and beyond now. Something for some laws. They need to be updated as

“a Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution” by Carol Berkin

The time for a new government came about in times of fear, many men such as William Livingston wondered “if the republic could even survive another decade” for Henry Knox made an excellent point in declaring “Our present federal government is a name, a shadow,

John Locke 's Influence On The United States

The United States government has changed very little from its early stages. The system of

Failures Of The Articles Of Confederation

In 1775, America began one of the most important moments of its life as well as history overall, the America Revolution. This war was fought to free the new colonies from the tyranny of the British monarchy and the unfair way it treated them. The fight was long and hard, but in the end the battle was won and the colonies became their own nation, left to rule under their own circumstances and set up their own government. Ironically when it came to setting this up, was in some ways, more difficult than the physical battle that came and went. The first attempt at a government blueprint came as “The Articles of confederation” which was the first written constitution and attempted to unify America under a set of rules that the citizens would better follow and appreciate. Martin Kelley quotes it as a creation of a “confederation of states whereby each state retained "its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right . . . not . . . expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." (Kelley). The failure came from its creation of independent states and as Ted Brackemyer puts it “…the lack of a strong national government in the Articles of Confederation led to three broad limitations.” These limits were economic disorganization, lack of central leadership, and legislative inefficiencies (Brackemyer).

Articles Of Confederation Dbq Analysis

When the states were new, after the Revolutionary War ended, the framers created a document called the Articles of Confederation which turned out to be a complete failure. Since the Articles of Confederation didn’t work and had many flaws, the framers eventually created a stronger government. The new government would come to be very different from the Articles of Confederation.

Supporting The Federalist 's Constitution

After the American Revolution the newly formed “government” was far from organized. Yes, the people achieved independence from a unruly and unjust mother country, but at what cost? Not only did this young nation have very little sense of a true structured government, but it was broke with most people were unaware of the situation on in their own country. The first written piece of real structured government was the Articles of Confederation. Although this document was criticized for it failing in the end, it was actually a very important step in the right direction towards a fully function government. Another problem raised during this time was the separation between federalist and anti-federalist. The federalists favored of a strong central government while the opposing anti-federalists sought to split the power among the states more evenly. Additionally the federalists privileged some of the more conventional British policies that were in place before the war. The anti-federalists were in favor of power “for the people”. If I were alive during this time I would be in preference of the constitution and most likely would have associated myself with the federalists.

Change And Continuity Of The Government

The government has changed and grown over the years. It is limited in a lot of ways including, popular sovereignty, federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and representative democracy. Today we’re only going to talk about three, popular sovereignty, checks and balances, and separation of powers. These are three ways the government stayed limited. The first national government was the Articles of Confederation until it began to get weak and the Americans abolished it. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 discussed a new national government, the US Constitution. The US Constitution consists of 3 branches, legislative, executive, and judicial.

The Framers Of The Constitution Essay

Certain interests do not change over time in our society. Over 200 years ago, the prominent concern that led to the framing of the Constitution regarded the establishment of a government that was “for the people and by the people.” The framers of the Constitution, with concern of an over powering central government in mind, provided a basis for the structure of the federal government of the United States. The powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government are laid out strategically in a way that no one branch can have more power than the other. The national concern of maintaining a legitimate government has not shifted since the initial days of the framers. Although the capacity of the government has grown over time, the system of checks and balances that was adapted in the framing of the Constitution allows for the structure and powers of the federal government to remain in order today. Other than providing a structural map for how the government will operate, however, the additional aspects of the Constitution fail to administer practical framework for addressing 21st century interests. This document was written over 200 years ago and it has not been altered substantially since then (Lazare). While certain Amendments have been added to assist the Constitution in staying relevant, such as the abolishment of slavery and the addition of women’s right to vote, there has been practically nothing added to help in applying the framers’ intentions

The Importance Of Hamilton's Contribution To The Form Of Democracy

I do think the Founders’ concerns about government are as valid today as they were in the 1700s because the founders’ words play an active role on partaking to the problems we see today. Alexander Hamilton stated, “Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress many.” This contributes to the form of government called Democracy as used today. According to page 7, “...the problem with ‘democracy’ is that the poor, who are numerous, attempt to seize the wealth of the rich, who are few. But if a constitution can combine (‘mix’)...” This quote exemplifies what Hamilton had said and from current day, it is widely occurring between the rich and poor citizens. If poor people were to get more attention

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Our Government Today 2 Pages 447 Words

             Government today is a lot different then the government that was created by our founding fathers. When they sat down to sign the declaration of independence, I wonder what they would have thought of our country as it exists today. The government has become an uncontrollable beast much like the government those heroes gave their lives to escape.              One of the key reasons this nation was founded was because of an over burden in taxes. And yet today, we see an ever increasing toll on the average American. We work the equivalent of four months a year just to pay our taxes. This has happened by a slow and gradual process. Our government increases taxes in small amounts that may not be liked by the citizens of this country, but they are tolerated. .              The main reason for all these taxes, is so that the government can fund all those great things it does for us. Of course, it seems the government has their hands in just about every aspect of our lives now. This is a far cry from the role of government planned out by our forefathers. The government was meant to be a minimal support function. Its capacity was to protect the rights of its society from harm, both internal and external. But today our government plays a role in deciding what we eat, where we live, how much we earn, and many other personal decisions. .              Our government was suppose to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. But somehow it has warped into a beast. And we seem to have little control over it. Recently we have seen propositions passed by the people only to have the government say that we can"t do it. Like a parent choosing for a child who doesn"t know better. When this happens, the people are shocked, but feel powerless to do anything about it.              One might say, if you don"t like the way things are, then go out and vote. But when was the last time you saw a candidate that stood for everything you believe in. Then go a step further and ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a politician who did everything he or she said they were going to do while running for office.

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Opinion The Founders’ antidote to demagoguery is a lesson for today

Jeffrey Rosen is president and chief executive of the National Constitution Center and author, most recently, of “ The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America .”

our government today essay

If the Founding Fathers were alive today, they would tremble for the future of our republic.

Watching the rise of hyperpartisanship and populist demagogues in the United States and around the world would be their worst nightmare. And they would wonder: Can the citizens of today muster the personal and political virtue necessary to save our nation?

When they drafted the Constitution, the Founders’ greatest fear was that a populist demagogue would flatter the mob, subvert American democracy and establish authoritarian rule. “The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote to George Washington in 1792 . “When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper … is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity … It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

Thomas Jefferson agreed with Hamilton about very little, except for the danger of populist demagogues. After he read a draft of the Constitution, his main concern was that an unscrupulous candidate in the distant future might lose an election and refuse to leave office. “If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government, be supported by the States voting for him,” Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1787 .

In the Founders’ view, the only thing standing between America and an authoritarian demagogue was the virtuous self-control of citizens who would find the wisdom to choose virtuous leaders. “I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom,” Madison said at the Constitutional Convention . “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.”

When the Founders talked about the need for virtuous citizens and leaders, they were referring to the four classical virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice. (By contrast, the three theological virtues are faith, hope and charity.) Following the classical and Enlightenment moral philosophers, the Founders believed that personal self-government was necessary for political self-government. In their view, the key to a healthy republic begins with how we address our own flaws and commit to becoming better citizens over time.

In the Federalist Papers, Madison and Hamilton made clear that the Constitution was designed to foster deliberation so that citizens could avoid retreating into the angry mobs and partisan factions that demagogues can inflame. Ancient Athens had fallen because the demagogue Cleon had seduced the Athenian assembly into continuing the war with the Peloponnesian League; the Roman Republic had fallen because the people were corrupted by Caesar, who offered them luxury in exchange for liberty. Only by governing their selfish emotions as individuals could citizens avoid degenerating into selfish factions that threaten the common good.

The Founders believed that virtuous self-mastery was necessary for both personal and political happiness. Today, we think of happiness as the pursuit of pleasure. But classical and Enlightenment thinkers defined happiness as the pursuit of virtue — as being good rather than feeling good. Just as individuals can use their powers of reason to achieve psychological happiness, so can groups of citizens use theirs to achieve political happiness.

Washington made the connection between public and private virtue and happiness repeatedly in his career. “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government,” he warned in his Farewell Address . In his Circular to the States in 1783, he said that four things were necessary for the people’s political and social happiness: an “indissoluble Union,” a “sacred regard to public Justice,” a “proper Peace Establishment,” and the cultivation of private virtue, which he defined as “the prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies” and “to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.”

At the end of their lives, the Founders disagreed about whether the American people would find the virtuous self-mastery to elect presidents who would sustain the republic. Jefferson, always more optimistic about American democracy, was more confident that the public mind could be calmed and perfected by education. “No government can continue good but under the control of the people,” Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1819 . “Their minds were to be informed, by education, what is right & what wrong, to be encouraged in habits of virtue.” Adams doubted that virtue could be taught on a wide scale. “Have you ever found in history one single example of a nation thoroughly Corrupted — that was afterwards restored to Virtue?” he replied to Jefferson .

Madison, as always, took the middle ground regarding the possibility of educating citizens in the habits of virtuous self-restraint. He put particular faith in a class of enlightened journalists and public officials, whom he called the literati. They could serve as moral educators, using new forms of media such as the broadside newspaper to calm and elevate the public mind. As Madison put it in a crucial passage in his “Notes for the National Gazette Essays ”: “The class of literati is not less necessary than any other. They are the cultivators of the human mind — the manufacturers of useful knowledge — the agents of the commerce of ideas — the censors of public manners — the teachers of the arts of life and the means of happiness.”

Today, of course, the idea that new media might be deployed by an enlightened class of literati to refine public opinion seems quaint. In the age of social media, with its “enrage to engage” model, the opposite occurs. The passions, hyperpartisanship and split-second decision-making that Madison and Hamilton feared from large groups meeting face to face have proved to be even more dangerous from exponentially larger groups that meet online.

It remains to be seen whether Americans today can find the virtuous self-restraint to put the public interest before the angry partisanship the Founders most feared. What’s clear, however, is that nothing less than the future of the Republic is at stake. As Madison wrote in Federalist 57 : “The aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers, men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous, whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”

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our government today essay

What is Presidents Day and how is it celebrated? What to know about the federal holiday

Many will have a day off on monday in honor of presidents day. consumers may take advantage of retail sales that proliferate on the federal holiday, but here's what to know about the history of it..

our government today essay

Presidents Day is fast approaching, which may signal to many a relaxing three-day weekend and plenty of holiday sales and bargains .

But next to Independence Day, there may not exist another American holiday that is quite so patriotic.

While Presidents Day has come to be a commemoration of all the nation's 46 chief executives, both past and present, it wasn't always so broad . When it first came into existence – long before it was even federally recognized – the holiday was meant to celebrate just one man: George Washington.

How has the day grown from a simple celebration of the birthday of the first president of the United States? And why are we seeing all these ads for car and furniture sales on TV?

Here's what to know about Presidents Day and how it came to be:

When is Presidents Day 2024?

This year, Presidents Day is on Monday, Feb. 19.

The holiday is celebrated on the third Monday of every February because of a bill signed into law in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Taking effect three years later, the Uniform Holiday Bill mandated that three holidays – Memorial Day, Presidents Day and Veterans Day – occur on Mondays to prevent midweek shutdowns and add long weekends to the federal calendar, according to Britannica .

Other holidays, including Labor Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day , were also established to be celebrated on Mondays when they were first observed.

However, Veterans Day was returned to Nov. 11 in 1978 and continues to be commemorated on that day.

What does Presidents Day commemorate?

Presidents Day was initially established in 1879 to celebrate the birthday of the nation's first president, George Washington. In fact, the holiday was simply called Washington's Birthday, which is still how the federal government refers to it, the Department of State explains .

Following the death of the venerated American Revolution leader in 1799, Feb. 22, widely believed to be Washington's date of birth , became a perennial day of remembrance, according to History.com .

The day remained an unofficial observance for much of the 1800s until Sen. Stephen Wallace Dorsey of Arkansas proposed that it become a federal holiday. In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law, according to History.com.

While initially being recognized only in Washington D.C., Washington's Birthday became a nationwide holiday in 1885. The first to celebrate the life of an individual American, Washington's Birthday was at the time one of only five federally-recognized holidays – the others being Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

However, most Americans today likely don't view the federal holiday as a commemoration of just one specific president. Presidents Day has since come to represent a day to recognize and celebrate all of the United States' commanders-in-chief, according to the U.S. Department of State .

When the Uniform Holiday Bill took effect in 1971, a provision was included to combine the celebration of Washington’s birthday with Abraham Lincoln's on Feb. 12, according to History.com. Because the new annual date always fell between Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays, Americans believed the day was intended to honor both presidents.

Interestingly, advertisers may have played a part in the shift to "Presidents Day."

Many businesses jumped at the opportunity to use the three-day weekend as a means to draw customers with Presidents Day sales and bargain at stores across the country, according to History.com.

How is the holiday celebrated?

Because Presidents Day is a federal holiday , most federal workers will have the day off .

Part of the reason Johnson made the day a uniform holiday was so Americans had a long weekend "to travel farther and see more of this beautiful land of ours," he wrote. As such, places like the Washington Monument in D.C. and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota – which bears the likenesses of Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt – are bound to attract plenty of tourists.

Similar to Independence Day, the holiday is also viewed as a patriotic celebration . As opposed to July, February might not be the best time for backyard barbecues and fireworks, but reenactments, parades and other ceremonies are sure to take place in cities across the U.S.

Presidential places abound across the U.S.

Opinions on current and recent presidents may leave Americans divided, but we apparently love our leaders of old enough to name a lot of places after them.

In 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau pulled information from its databases showcasing presidential geographic facts about the nation's cities and states.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the census data shows that as of 2020 , the U.S. is home to plenty of cities, counties and towns bearing presidential names. Specifically:

  • 94 places are named "Washington."
  • 72 places are named "Lincoln."
  • 67 places are named for Andrew Jackson, a controversial figure who owned slaves and forced thousands of Native Americans to march along the infamous Trail of Tears.

Contributing: Clare Mulroy

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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  • Economic News

US Economy News Today: Could the Government's Measure of Housing Inflation Be Better?

Taylor Tompkins has worked for more than a decade as a journalist covering business, finance, and the economy. She has logged thousands of hours interviewing experts, analyzing data, and writing articles to help readers understand economic forces. She is the Economics Editor for news at Investopedia.

our government today essay

Welcome to Investopedia's economics live blog, where we'll explain what the day's news says about the state of the U.S. economy and how that's likely to affect your finances. Here we will compile data releases, economic reports, quotes from expert sources and anything else that helps explain economic issues and why they matter to you.

Today, economists look at home data to tell us more about where the market is going and the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes could give insight into what exactly would give them greater confidence that inflation is sustainably moving down.

Credit May Be Harder to Come By Over the Next Six Months, Index Shows

The credit outlook may be improving, but it will remain more difficult to get loans for a while longer.

That's according to the American Bankers Association's Credit Condition Index which measures economists' expectations of the future of credit offerings. The latest edition of the index, released Wednesday, showed an increase of nearly 15 points in the first quarter of the year.

The reading came in at 19.2, its highest level in six quarters. However, it was still far below the 50-point mark that the association says indicates easier credit conditions.

"The sub-50 reading still indicates that lenders are likely to continue to exercise caution when extending credit to both businesses and consumers over the coming two quarters," the association said in the report.

FOMC Minutes Reiterate the Need For More Confidence

The Federal Reserve released minutes from their January Open Markets Committee meeting Wednesday, but the notes did not shed additional light on when rates will be cut or what the catalysts to a cut might be.

The minutes echoed the talking points officials have been reiterating over the weeks since the meeting—they need more confidence that inflation will sustainably move toward its 2% goal.

While inflation is expected to tick down this year, the Fed's outlook doubted that it would fall as fast as some anticipated.

"Al­though inflation had come in close to expectations throughout most of 2023, the staff placed some weight on the possibility that further progress in reducing inflation could take longer than expected," the minutes said.

That need for confidence may have been prudent given the inflation data that was released after this meeting. Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index came in higher than economists expected and remained particularly stubborn in areas like shelter.

Read more about the January minutes here .

Could the Government Measure Housing Inflation More Efficiently?

For most items measured in the Consumer Price Index, the government uses a fairly straightforward method of checking actual prices at stores.

But housing prices, which are driving much of the country's current inflation , are measured differently.

In addition to measuring actual rent prices, the Bureau of Labor Statistics asks homeowners how much they would rent their house out for if they leased it out instead of living there. This measure is called Owners’ Equivalent Rent  (OER). Freddie Mac chief economist Sam Khater said the government already has access to millions of data points on how much people pay for their mortgages through government-sponsored enterprises .

“The OER is attempting to get to what a typical consumer is paying for their shelter, their monthly obligation,” Khater said. “It’s a simple way, and at least one that the government should be tracking.”

Read more about how OER is lagging here .

Labor Actions Stopped Work the Most In More Than Two Decades

There were more major work stoppages in last. year than there were since 2000, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Thirty-three work stoppages began in 2023, double the average of the last 20 years, the bureau reported Wednesday. Nearly 459,000 workers were involved in the work stoppages, nearly half of which were in the education and health fields.

Work stoppages made headlines last year as the United Auto Workers union and entertainment-related unions organized weeks-long strikes to negotiate new contracts.

Some labor market analysts think the organized labor momentum could roll into this year, with contract expirations at AT&T ( T ) and Boeing ( BA ) ahead this year.

Survey: More Potential Homebuyers Would Jump Back In If Rates Were Below 5%

As noted by the Mortgage Banker Association's chief economist (see below), potential homebuyers are sensitive to fluctuations in mortgage rates—and a large portion are simply waiting for lower rates.

According to a survey released Wednesday by Realtor.com, nearly two-thirds of potential homebuyers would need rates to fall for it to be feasible for them to buy.

According to Freddie Mac, the average mortgage rate sits at 6.77% but not all buyers get a rate under 7%. Depending on a variety of factors including credit score, location and loan amount, mortgage rates often fluctuate above the average amount.

Mortgage Applications Drop as Rates Move Higher

With hopes of imminent interest rate cuts dimming, applications for mortgage loans fell for the second straight week .

Mortgage applications fell 10.6% in the week ending Feb. 16, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday.

The data showed applications declined across the board, with the unadjusted index for new purchases falling 6% when compared with the previous week and was 13% lower from the same week a year ago. Additionally, the refinance index was down 11% from last week, and at about the same level it was a year ago.

After a hotter-than-expected inflation report undercut optimism around Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, mortgage rates moved back up last week, further dampening enthusiasm for mortgages. 

“Potential homebuyers are quite sensitive to these rate changes, as affordability is strained with both higher rates and higher home values in this supply-constrained market,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA chief economist.

-Terry Lane

American Bankers Association. " ABA CREDIT CONDITIONS INDEX — Q1 2024 ."

Federal Reserve. " Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee ."

Bureau of Labor Statistics. " MAJOR WORK STOPPAGES IN 2023 ."

Realtor.com. " Americans Hold on to the Dream of Homeownership ."

Freddie Mac. " Mortgage Rates ."

Mortgage Bankers Association. “ Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey .”

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Judge says Mike Lindell must pay $5 million to man who won his 'Prove Mike Wrong' challenge

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 4, 2023.

A federal judge is giving MyPillow founder and election denier Mike Lindell 30 days to pay a $5 million arbitration award for losing his “ Prove Mike Wrong ” 2020 election challenge.

The decision Wednesday by a judge in Minneapolis affirmed an arbitration panel’s ruling last year that Lindell has to pay up for losing his own 2021 contest challenging experts to prove that data he had in his possession was not from the 2020 election.

The plaintiff in the case, Robert Zeidman, “is awarded $5 million plus post-judgment interest beginning April 19, 2023, to be paid within 30 days of issuance of this Order, per the Arbitration Award,” U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim wrote in his ruling.

Lindell told NBC News he’d likely appeal the decision in the “corrupt” case, but Zeidman’s attorney Brian Glasser said that wouldn’t stop him from having to pay up in the meantime.

“If you want to stop the collection effort you have to post a bond,” Glasser said. If Lindell does not do so, “we have the right to use collection mechanisms to try to find the money,” including by seizing bank accounts and using subpoena power to track Lindell’s assets, Glasser said.

He said he didn’t believe Lindell would have any better luck with an appeal, because the standard for review in arbitration cases is “super high.”

Lindell said in a phone interview that Lindell Management LLC is the company that put on the event, not him personally, and that he’s strapped for cash. He said while his pillow company is “doing fine,” “I don’t have any money.” “I have a pickup truck and a house that I live in. That’s it,” he said.

Glasser’s client is a software developer and Trump supporter who’d attended an August 2021 cyber-symposium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that was being hosted by Lindell, an outspoken election denier and conspiracy theorist who maintains that the 2020 election was stolen.

Zeidman was excited to see what evidence Lindell had turned up to back his claims and testified before the arbitration panel that he entered the contest because he “wanted access to the data as promised to see ‘history in the making, perhaps to see an election overturned,’” the arbitrators’ ruling said. Zeidman “told his friends that he was unlikely to win because Mr. Lindell would not offer a $5 million prize if Mr. Lindell had not had his own experts vet all the data to be presented,” the ruling added.

Zeidman said he was given 11 files to review in two days at the conference.

“Much to his chagrin, he found it wasn’t 2020 election data,” Glasser said last year .

Lindell’s contest panel did not agree with Zeidman’s findings, so the dispute went before an arbitration panel.

In his ruling, Tunheim said, “A court’s review of an arbitration award is very limited.” The Federal Arbitration Act “requires that an arbitration be upheld unless it is obtained by ‘corruption, fraud, or undue means,’ where there is ‘evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators,’ where there was misconduct by the arbitrators, or where the arbitrators exceeded their powers,” the judge wrote, noting that a federal appeals court has held that “an arbitration award will be vacated only where it is ‘completely irrational or evidences a manifest disregard for the law.’”

In Lindell’s case, the judge said he had concerns about the way the panel interpreted some of the contract language at the heart of the case, but “not enough to vacate the award.”

“Even though the Court may have reached a different outcome given an independent initial review of the information, the Court fails to identify evidence that the panel exceeded its authority. Under the Court’s narrow review, it will confirm the arbitration award,” the judge wrote.

Lindell told NBC News last year that he could no longer afford to pay the attorneys who’d been defending him in defamation lawsuits brought by voting machine companies  Smartmatic  and  Dominion Voting Systems , as well as a third lawsuit brought by former Dominion employee  Eric Coomer .

“We’ve lost everything, every dime,” he said in a phone interview in October. “All of it is gone.”

our government today essay

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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Leaked Files Show the Secret World of China’s Hackers for Hire

China has increasingly turned to private companies in campaigns to hack foreign governments and control its domestic population.

The exterior of the I-Soon office in Chengdu, China.

By Paul Mozur ,  Keith Bradsher ,  John Liu and Aaron Krolik

Paul Mozur reported from Taipei, Keith Bradsher from Beijing, John Liu from Seoul and Aaron Krolik from New York.

The hackers offered a menu of services, at a variety of prices.

A local government in southwest China paid less than $15,000 for access to the private website of traffic police in Vietnam. Software that helped run disinformation campaigns and hack accounts on X cost $100,000. For $278,000 Chinese customers could get a trove of personal information behind social media accounts on platforms like Telegram and Facebook.

The offerings, detailed in leaked documents, were a portion of the hacking tools and data caches sold by a Chinese security firm called I-Soon, one of the hundreds of enterprising companies that support China’s aggressive state-sponsored hacking efforts. The work is part of a campaign to break into the websites of foreign governments and telecommunications firms.

The materials, which were posted to a public website last week, revealed an eight-year effort to target databases and tap communications in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India and elsewhere in Asia. The files also showed a campaign to closely monitor the activities of ethnic minorities in China and online gambling companies.

The data included records of apparent correspondence between employees, lists of targets and material showing off cyberattack tools. Three cybersecurity experts interviewed by The New York Times said the documents appeared to be authentic.

Taken together, the files offered a rare look inside the secretive world of China’s state-backed hackers for hire . They illustrated how Chinese law enforcement and its premier spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, have reached beyond their own ranks to tap private-sector talent in a hacking campaign that United States officials say has targeted American companies and government agencies.

“We have every reason to believe this is the authentic data of a contractor supporting global and domestic cyberespionage operations out of China,” said John Hultquist, the chief analyst at Google’s Mandiant Intelligence.

Mr. Hultquist said the leak revealed that I-Soon was working for a range of Chinese government entities that sponsor hacking, including the Ministry of State Security, the People’s Liberation Army and China’s national police. At times the firm’s employees focused on overseas targets. In other cases they helped China’s feared Ministry of Public Security surveil Chinese citizens domestically and overseas.

“They are part of an ecosystem of contractors that has links to the Chinese patriotic hacking scene, which developed two decades ago and has since gone legit,” he added, referring to the emergence of nationalist hackers who have become a kind of cottage industry.

I-Soon did not respond to emailed questions about the leak.

The revelations underscore the degree to which China has ignored, or evaded, American and other efforts for more than a decade to limit its extensive hacking operations. And it comes as American officials are warning that the country not only has doubled down, but also has moved from mere espionage to the implantation of malicious code in American critical infrastructure — perhaps to prepare for a day when conflict erupts over Taiwan.

The Chinese government’s use of private contractors to hack on its behalf borrows from the tactics of Iran and Russia, which for years have turned to nongovernmental entities to go after commercial and official targets. Although the scattershot approach to state espionage can be more effective, it has also proved harder to control. Some Chinese contractors have used malware to extort ransoms from private companies, even while working for China’s spy agency.

In part, the change is rooted in a decision by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to elevate the role of the Ministry of State Security to engage in more hacking activities, which previously fell primarily under the purview of the People’s Liberation Army. While the security ministry emphasizes absolute loyalty to Mr. Xi and Communist Party rule, its hacking and espionage operations are often initiated and controlled by provincial-level state security offices .

Those offices sometimes, in turn, farm out hacking operations to commercially driven groups — a recipe for occasionally cavalier and even sloppy espionage activities that fail to heed to Beijing’s diplomatic priorities and may upset foreign governments with their tactics.

Parts of China’s government still engage in sophisticated top-down hacks, like endeavoring to place code inside U.S. core infrastructure. But the overall number of hacks originating in China has surged, and targets have ranged more broadly — including information about Ebola vaccines and driverless car technology.

That has fueled a new industry of contractors like I-Soon. Although a part of the cloak-and-dagger world of Chinese cyberespionage, the Shanghai company, which also has offices in Chengdu, epitomized the amateurishness that many of China’s relatively new contractors bring to hacking. The documents showed that at times the company was not sure if services and data it was selling were still available. For instance, it noted internally that the software to spread disinformation on X was “under maintenance” — despite its $100,000 price tag.

The leak also outlined the workaday hustle, and struggle, of China’s entrepreneurial hacking contractors. Like many of its rivals, I-Soon organized cybersecurity competitions to recruit new hires. In place of selling to a centralized government agency, one spreadsheet showed, I-Soon had to court China’s police and other agencies city by city. That meant advertising and marketing its wares. In one letter to local officials in western China, the company boasted that it could help with antiterrorism enforcement because it had broken into Pakistan’s counterterrorism unit.

Materials included in the leak that promoted I-Soon’s hacking techniques described technologies built to break into Outlook email accounts and procure information like contact lists and location data from Apple’s iPhones. One document appeared to contain extensive flight records from a Vietnamese airline, including travelers’ identity numbers, occupations and destinations.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

At the same time, I-Soon said it had built technology that could meet the domestic demands of China’s police, including software that could monitor public sentiment on social media inside China. Another tool, made to target accounts on X, could pull email addresses, phone numbers and other identifiable information related to user accounts and, in some cases, help hack those accounts.

In recent years, Chinese law enforcement officials have managed to identify activists and government critics who had posted on X using anonymous accounts from inside and outside China. Often they then used threats to force X users to take down posts that the authorities deemed overly critical or inappropriate.

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news briefing Thursday that she was not aware of a data leak from I-Soon. “As a matter of principle, China firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with the law,” Ms. Mao said.

X did not respond to a request seeking comment. A spokesman said the South Korean government would have no comment.

Even though the leak involved only one of China’s many hacking contractors, experts said the huge amount of data could help agencies and companies working to defend against Chinese attacks.

“This represents the most significant leak of data linked to a company suspected of providing cyberespionage and targeted intrusion services for the Chinese security services,” said Jonathan Condra, the director of strategic and persistent threats at Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm.

Among the information hacked was a large database of the road network in Taiwan, an island democracy that China has long claimed and threatened with invasion. The 459 gigabytes of maps came from 2021, and showed how firms like I-Soon collect information that can be militarily useful, experts said. China’s government itself has long deemed Chinese driving navigation data as sensitive and set strict limits on who can collect it.

“Figuring out the road terrain is crucial for planning armored and infantry movements around the island on the way to occupy population centers and military bases,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a cybersecurity expert.

Other information included internal email services or intranet access for multiple Southeast Asian government ministries, including Malaysia’s foreign and defense ministries and Thailand’s national intelligence agency. Immigration data from India that covered national and foreign passengers’ flight and visa details was also up for grabs, according to the files.

In other cases, I-Soon claimed to have access to data from private companies like telecom firms in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

The revelations gained about Chinese attacks are likely to confirm the fears of policymakers in Washington, where officials have issued repeated, dire warnings about such hacks. Last weekend in Munich, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher A. Wray, said hacking operations from China were now directed against the United States at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” and ranked them among America’s chief national security threats.

He became one of the first senior officials to talk openly about Volt Typhoon , the name of a Chinese network of hackers that has placed code in critical infrastructure, resulting in alarms across the government. Intelligence officials believe that the code was intended to send a message: that at any point China could disrupt electrical supplies, water supplies or communications.

Some of the code has been found near American military bases that rely on civilian infrastructure to keep running — especially bases that would be involved in any rapid response to an attack on Taiwan.

“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Wray concluded.

David E. Sanger and Chris Buckley contributed reporting.

Paul Mozur is the global technology correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Previously he wrote about technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. More about Paul Mozur

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic. More about Keith Bradsher

John Liu covers China and technology for The Times, focusing primarily on the interplay between politics and technology supply chains. He is based in Seoul. More about John Liu

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  1. Biggest problems and greatest strengths of the US political system

    Fewer than half of adults hold the view that the government deserves more credit than it gets: Majorities say that "the federal government does more for ordinary Americans than people give it credit for" (59%) and "Congress accomplishes more than people give it credit for" (65%) are both bad descriptions of the political system.

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    When our federal system was established in July of 1776, an estimated 2.5 million people lived in the thirteen colonies. Today, we have over 330 million — over 130 times the size at the Founding — and our population is more diverse than ever before. It should come as no surprise then that Americans have divergent views on every political ...

  4. What is the Purpose of the US Government?

    As documented in the US Constitution, the people of the US, through our Government, seek to form a more perfect union by establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Our strategy

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