The Public Policy : The Issue Of The Federal Government

responsibility to solve problems often exceed the capacity of state and local authorities to respond effectively. On the other hand, policies developed at the national level may not sufficiently reflect the great diversity of interests across the U.S. to be effective at the local level. Moreover, the

There are many governmental issues take place in the United States of America, very few require the immediate involvement of the President of the United States of America. Such an issue must be a current or potential situation that without the direct intervention of the President, the resulting consequences would be detrimental to the welfare of the United States. Among these few issues, in the year of 2014, is the very prominent issue of illegal immigration. Although illegal immigration has existed in this country since it was established, over the years it has presented itself as more of a problem than ever before in the past. “More than 10 million undocumented aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year. On one hand, the presence of so many aliens is a powerful testament to the attractiveness of America. On the other hand, it is a sign of how dangerously open our borders are” (Kane, Johnson). But the problem is not necessarily our open borders; rather it is the crippling effect illegal immigration has on our already broken economy. Around the beginning of 2005, immigration policy finally started to receive much more attention from members of Congress on both sides of the political spectrum, but they are still considering what exactly needs to be done about immigration policy. Still, Congress has passed no legislation that has

This is when the public has the chance to get involved in the policy making process.

In this paper I will be discussing how our class came to a consensus on our policy analysis framework. To understand what we are attempting to accomplish, you need to understand the denotation of policy analysis. Policy analysis is a technique used in public administration so individuals can evaluate and scrutinize policies. Policy analysis is not only limited to policy’s that are already enacted, policy analysis can be used to analyze perspective policy’s. There are already a handful of policy analysis frameworks available for use. These include: Chambers 2009, Gilbert and Terrell 2009, Popple and Leighninger 2004, and Dobelstein 2003. Many of the frameworks are heavily influenced by the work of Eveline Burns, who was prevalent in the 1940’s and 1950’s. While these frameworks would have been suitable to use for our analysis our class chose to create our own framework to help with analysis. In these next few paragraphs I will explain how and why we chose what we did.

America has come up with this predefined set of rules that everyone in our society must follow, Laws. Laws have been thoroughly discussed and picked to assure that the nation runs smoothly. Americans have their rights to certain aspects of life, but most of which are violated or misused by court officials or government officials. Many years ago, people decided they would find a way to govern America. They formed the U.S. Constitution, a form of government like no other by the people, of the people, and for the people.

Freedom of speech, Barendt (2005) mentioned, is one of the basic rights of any human being. The entitlement to express one’s opinion and view on anything without the fear of being harassed or penalized by the authority is ensured by this act. For many centuries common people were denied this right. Even now many countries prohibit its citizens to practice this fundamental right. USA is one of the countries, which is known for being vocal about civil rights and freedom. Therefore it is no wonder that the country’s constitution has given special attention to Freedom of speech. Freedom of expression and freedom of rights are uttered under same breath. They have subtle differences. The broad definition of right of speech allows an individual to communicate any idea, the medium being his/her body and property to whoever is interested. Freedom of expression additionally includes receiving, passing on and searching for information through any medium. The first amendment shields the freedom of speech right of the American citizens. Although there are several clauses to this practice, yet USA is one of the countries, which have provided its people with the freedom to put forward their

Author John Kingdon’s book entitled Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy takes at look at Policy issues and examines how these policy issues became issues to begin with. Kingdon starts his book by looking into how policy issues come to the government 's attention. He expresses to his readers that problems get identified when we focus on certain events or changes. Policy is taken over by researchers and bureaucrats, and the political aspect is dominated by members of the government. When these three come together, Problems, Policy and Politics, issues get on the decision agenda.

The public’s opinion has a huge influence on the outcomes of laws. For the most part, legislators don’t want to

The Political Scientist, Charles E. Lindblom, developed Incrementalism in the mid-1950s. The goal of the Incremental Decision Model, was for policy makers to avoid making drastic changes before they thought through the issues. The text defines Incremental Decision Making Model as a view of the public policymaking process that assumes that small decisions made at the margins of problems are usual reality of change. (Shafritz/Russell/Borick 8th ed.)

Throughout the history of the United States, our government has proposed solutions for problems not specifically addressed in the constitution. Some of these problems developed over time, some resulted from changes in the social climate of the country, others from the constant influx of immigrants from other nations. Many of the solutions that government proposed did not solve the problem; sometimes, the problem got worse. In these cases, the government had to implement a long-term solution to maintain law and order.

Throughout times, democracy has emerged as the best political way to rule a country. Within democratic systems, citizens have to vote for people who will represent them in the decision-making system. The question that John Kingdon wanted to understand in his writing of How Do Issues Get on Public Agendas? is how the legislative process and the public policies are made. John Kingdon well illustrates the processes by which an issue becomes policy issue, named the Cohen-March-Olsen, and the coming together of three processes. In the Cohen-March-Olsen, Kingdon proposed three stream: problem-recognition, policy stream of proposals and political stream.

In order to effectively comprehend the United States of America’s (U.S.) policy making process, one must, accordingly, understand the various stages as well as the institutions involved in the same. More particularly, there are four key institutions involved in the U.S.’ policy making process; each of which play a significant role in the various stages of the process. Specifically, the U.S. policymaking process is comprised of four stages, to wit: agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and evaluation. First, the agenda setting stage is concerned with the specific problems of the public that the government aims to solve. Next, the formulation stage, or the “nuts and bolts” of policymaking, is the point when policymakers attempt to resolve the problem by creating new laws and policies. Thereafter, the new laws and policies that have been created are put into play in the implementation stage. Finally, in the evaluation stage is when policymakers assess whether the new laws and/or policies are working as intended, and whether it resolved the problem it was designed to target. (Moats, 2016, Congress: The Legislative Branch).

There are numerous issues within CA that are increasing the strain placed on the policy making process. The biggest challenge CA faces in the next few decades is meeting the needs of a growing

Policy cycle is a valuable device for new policy development. It is a tool which divides complex procedures into convenient and manageable steps. These individual steps provides a frame work andantedates any forthcoming issues related to policy development. However, as Althaus, Bridgman & Davis (2013) said these steps are not stages that have to be followed in a same manner they are to help policy developers to individually assess, evaluate, process and provides room for corrections. These steps are flexible enough to incorporate any changes at the time of new policy development and as a part of continuous change once it is implemented. Colebatch (2006) said that changes are necessary for the use of contemporary information to reshape and review of any policy to achieve desirable outcome. Hence policy making is known as an ongoing process which represent its cyclic nature.

My difficult questions surround the doing and the reading of the policy process. There are three areas that I would like further explore: the role of citizen participation in the policy process, importance of critical and postmodern perspectives in understanding public policy, and the role of government.