IDSEM-UG1768 / Government and the Economy

Short-paper Assignment
Fall 2014
As noted on the syllabus, each student is expected to write two 3-5 page essays over the course of the semester. You must turn in the
first short paper on Friday, October 17 and the second by December 12. Your first short paper should be based on one of the topic
options listed under Section-A below. Your second short paper should be based on one of the texts/options noted under Section-B.
Please make sure your paper is typed and double-spaced. It should have 1-inch margins and reasonable font size (like 10 or 12 point).
Please use APA style for both the bibliography and in-text documentation. 1 Additionally, when doing your in-text documentation,
please note that within the social sciences it is standard practice to include in-text documentation anytime you mention a statistic in
your paper. (That is to say, you have to note the source of the statistic, including the page number.) Please bring a print copy of your
paper with you on the day that the paper is due. Papers will be collected at the start of class.
A. Section-ONE Topic Options

[Choose 1 from the following 6 options. Due Friday, 10/17]

1. Write a short paper that reacts to whatever you found to be most interesting in the text Red Ink.
Or, if you need more structure for this topic option, or some questions to get your juices flowing, consider the following multipart question:
David Wessel's book, Red Ink, provides a discussion of government spending. What do we learn about the nature of
government spending in the United States from this text? For example, what does the text reveal about the current
composition of government spending, that is to say, what types of activities does the federal government spend
money on? What does it tell us about the level of government spending? What does the text reveal about the
process of making spending decisions? For example, what government agencies, branches or committees are
involved in the process? What types of conflicts have they experienced in recent or past history? Additionally, what
do we learn about spending over time, and/or spending relative to the revenue the federal government takes in
and/or the size of the US economy? Can you illustrate any of your arguments using a graph(s)? Address some of
these issues in an essay.
For this topic option, your first objective would be to show that you understand the author's argument(s).
After that, you probably want to incorporate your perspective on the issue as a private citizen. Do you agree or
disagree with Wessel on some issue, for example? Do you think the federal government spends too much
money? Do you think it spends too little? Are there programs or categories of spending that you would like to
cut? What types of tradeoffs might be involved with such a change? What would be your priorities if you were a
policymaker, and why?
2. In A People's Guide to the Federal Budget, the text says Ideally, the federal budget should be an expression of our collective
values" (National Priorities Project 2012, p. xiii). In Red Ink, David Wessel describes the budget as presenting a "vision" of the role
of government in the economy (Wessel 2012, p.15). Do you think the United States' budget process works in a way that ensures
that the budget reflects most Americans' values, preferences, or needs? What is the nature of the current process for putting
together a budget; and what, in your opinion, are some of the pros and cons of the present system?
3. A reaction paper based on Chapter 3 of Taxing Ourselves (the "Fairness" chapter).
For example, you might consider responding to the following multi-part question: Evaluate Slemrod and Bakija's
argument(s) about why it is so difficult to set up a tax system that is considered to be "fair." What are all the different ways
that one might conceptualize fairness that exist according to the authors? As a private citizen, do you think the present
APA style refers to the style guidelines laid out by the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA lists these guidelines in a book titled
Publication Manual of theAmerican Psychological Association. The NYU library has a copy of this manual at the reference desk. Bobst library's
website also offers a link to a place on the APA's website where one can get basic info about the APA guidelines for dealing with references. That
URL is http://www.apastyle.org/apa-style-help.aspx . Purdue University also has a great discussion of APA style on one of its websites. So you can
also take a look at the Purdue OWL site if you're not familiar with APA rules: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

structure of the US tax code is fair and why do you take the position that you take? (For, example, is your position rooted in
your moral values, is it based on some kind of economic reasoning, or are you basing it on something else? Discuss.)
4. A more general paper that discusses the numerous challenges involved with designing a good tax system, as identified in
Chapters 3 and 5 of Taxing Ourselves.
5. Consider the case studies posted on NYU Classes. Can you analyze these real world historical events using the AD/AS model
that we learned about in our fiscal policy and monetary policy analysis section of the syllabus? To what extent do they illustrate
the predictions of the theory? Please include a diagram(s) as part of your discussion.
6. A reaction paper based on Ben Benanke's The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis
For example, you could contemplate the following: Consider Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's discussion of the actions that the
Federal Reserve (the "Fed") took in response to the financial crisis and the 2007 recession. Write a reaction paper to the text
that addresses issues such as some of the following: In what sense were some of the Fed's reactions textbook responses to
the situation the economy faced? To what degree did these recent events require novel approaches by the Fed? Why does
the United States even have a central bank, that is to say what is the purpose of the Fed?
B. Section-TWO* [Choose 1 from the following list. Due by Friday 12/12]
1. The United States has several programs that are designed to keep people out of poverty and/or to help low-income people. Do
you think that it is right for the government to redistribute income? Are there tradeoffs involved, that is to say pros and cons?
2. What, according to Mettler, are the key drawbacks of having programs or policies that deliver their benefits through the tax
code? Discuss.
3. What does Haidt mean when he says that we have "righteous minds," and how do our "hivish" tendencies influence our
behavior as voters? What do you think that we learn from this text about the benefits of interdisciplinary analysis?
4. What does the Lakeoff text reveal about the role that language plays in shaping politics? How, according to the author, do
conservatives and liberals use language differently and why is this important?
5. How, according to Dionne, does the tension that Americans feel between the "love of individualism" on the one hand, the
"reverence for community" on the other, affect contemporary politics?
*In this section, it might also be interesting to do some kind of comparison between Haidt's ideas and Lakoff's and Dionne's (or two
out of the three). If you decide that you are interested in doing a reaction paper that compares and contrasts the ideas contained
in different texts, that's fine too.