Public Policy - AP US Government

United States antitrust laws are designed to prevent businesses from forming monopolies or cartels and to ensure that competition is allowed to flourish. The most notable pieces of legislation that relate to antitrust laws are the Sherman Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914.

Medicaid, enacted into United States law in 1965, is designed to provide healthcare to poor Americans who would otherwise be unable to afford health care coverage. Medicare, enacted in the same piece of legislation during the Johnson administration, is designed to provide health benefits to senior citizens. Taken together, these two government programs may be understood as part of the widespread extension of social welfare that took place in the United States during the 1960s.

Protectionism is an economic policy designed to protect the national economy from being overrun by imports. This is primarily achieved through tariffs and other restrictions on imports into the country. Protectionism has been enforced at various times throughout United States history, particularly in the early years of the nation. The policy runs in direct contrast to free trade which is more recently the dominant economic policy of the nation.

Affirmative Action is the name given to the government policy, or any legislation related to the policy, which is designed to give special compensation or advantages to a social, religious, or ethnic group that has previously been disadvantaged. The idea is to try and correct for longstanding social ills against certain groups within society by granting them special dispensation. It first appeared as part of the Wagner Act issued during the 1930s and has been a controversial part of United States’ government policy ever since.

A block grant, as opposed to a categorical grant, is when the Federal government provides a sum of money to state or local governments with very few strings attached. In a block grant the, state and local governments have a lot of leeway with how exactly they can spend the grant money, whereas in a Categorical Grant the money must be spent in a very constrained manner, which is determined at the Federal level. A grant designed to help states improve access to education within their states is a relatively broad purpose. A categorical grant trying to achieve the same thing would likely say something more like "a Federal government program designed to provide money to states to improve access to education by conducting a specific type of research to see how better to meet the needs of students." A categorical grant is more specific and strict than a block grant.

The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision first passed in 1976, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade (1973), which had legalized abortion. The Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of Federal funds to pay for abortions, except in very specific circumstances (such as rape or when the woman's life is endangered by the pregnancy). Because it only focuses on restricting the availability of Federal funding, the Hyde Amendment disproportionately targets extremely poor women.

Ex post facto laws mean "after the fact." If you were driving 65 mph five days ago, even though the speed limit has been changed to 55 mph, it is not lawful for any law enforcement officer to issue you a ticket. Any illegal actions that were committed before the enforcement of the law cannot be punished.

Police see a car swerving on the freeway late at night. After they pull over the car and see that the driver is drunk, they get a law passed which states that it is illegal for everyone to drive cars past 12 am. This solution is NOT congruent and proportional. The concept of congruency and proportionality states that solutions must be congruent and proportional (suitable, balanced, and correlative) to the problem at hand. Banning all citizens from driving past 12 am is not a congruent and proportional solution. A better, congruent and proportional, solution would be issuing a breathalyzer test to all cars swerving on the highway late at night.

Brief, warrantless pat downs are permitted by stop and frisk. Stop and frisk is when a police officer, when given reasonable suspicion, can stop an individual and conduct a pat down. Reasonable suspicion and good judgment/observation on the officer's behalf allows for these warrantless pat downs.

The most common form of execution in the United States today is lethal injection. The Constitution does not state that any of these methods of execution are inhumane or cruel and unusual. The standards for cruel and unusual punishment have also changed with the times. Although a controversial issue, lethal injections are most widely used as a humane form of execution today.

Floating a "trial balloon" is the term for anonymously giving information to a news source to test the public reaction to a policy or appointment before it is formally introduced in Congress or another forum.

Isolationism was a foreign policy that was dominant in the American political arena throughout the majority of the nineteenth century. It argues that the United States will not get involved in foreign conflicts and will try to remain isolated on the international stage.

The League of Nations was part of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which he released on the eve of the end of World War One. The idea was to form an international body that would oversee international affairs and try to prevent another global conflict from breaking out. It failed in part due to a lack of support in the United States: it failed even to pass Congress, much to Wilson’s dismay.

NATO was created in 1949 as an alliance of the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Turkey to meet the perceived threat of the Soviet Union and the rise of communism. It was primarily a military alliance. Its opposition was the Warsaw Pact, which was formed shortly afterwards between Russia and the communist nations of the Eastern Bloc.

Appeasement is the term given to making concessions to a political or military rival in order to prevent said rival from doing something even worse. It has long been a controversial form of making policy and is most notable in US History for America’s reaction to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931.

Throughout the initial decades of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union continued to acquire more and more nuclear weapons until each nation possessed the capacity to destroy the planet many times over. In an attempt to mitigate this massive threat to humanity, the two superpowers signed a treaty in 1972 designed to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons possessed by both nations. This took place during the presidency of Richard Nixon.

George Washington was particularly concerned about entering long-term alliances with foreign nations, fearing it would draw America into unnecessary conflicts. His fear of political factions warring over the government was a common fear among the founders, best expressed by Madison's Federalist No. 10.

The Monroe Doctrine was coined by President James Monroe in 1823 in an attempt to warn European nations against aggressive actions in the Western Hemisphere. The goal was to strengthen the foreign policy of the United States and to become a real world power.

The Monroe Doctrine was introduced by James Monroe in 1823, the fifth president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt expanded upon the doctrine during his presidency, but did not introduce the original doctrine. James Munroe is also notable because he was the last Founding Father to be President.