Public Policy
Public Policy impacts almost every aspect of our lives, be iteconomic, social or cultural. Our economic well-being is, to a largeextent, determined by the fiscal and monetary policies of government, whilesocially we are directly or indirectly affected by public policy on a rangeof issues from healthcare and education to welfare and the legal system ofjustice. Culturally, too, our lives are influenced by, for example, publicpolicies formulated in the area of working hours, national holidays orracial issues. All in all, the presence of public policy is so all-pervading that its importance in a democracy cannot be overemphasized. Assuch, it is desirable that every citizen gains, at the least, a rudimentaryunderstanding of how public policy works and how it can be influenced sothat greater economic and social justice for all segments of society is The importance of public policy becomes all the more evident with theciting of one, highly pertinent example, which directly impacts the livesof all ordinary Americans. Consider that in the last few decades,"privately held wealth... has become increasingly concentrated in the UnitedStates.... In 1989, the richest 1% of the population co
And that a democratic process of policy makinginvolves working towards economic and social justice for all, substantiallyhelped by active, interested citizens. If, as per Vandberg's view of thesocial contract, public choice theory, policy making should be guided byauthentic self-justifying values, then perhaps the recommendations tabledby the participants of the Odyssey Forum symposium in November 1997 shouldbe evaluated carefully: "improvements in the current welfare-to-work policyin TANF must be based on a readiness to develop discrete policies thatconnect the realities between the supply of employable welfare recipientsand the private sector demand for their labor. This widespread perception has led to social scientific knowledge focusingfar more heavily on the behavior, culture, and demographics of poor peoplerather than on the characteristics of the broader social structure,political culture, and economy that foster such high rates of poverty. 197-8) The example of the inequality of wealth distribution and the impact ofthe 1996 welfare reform has hopefully served to demonstrate the importanceof public policy to our lives, both as an individual and as a member ofsociety, as a whole. The reduction in welfare and socialbenefits were the result of such debate along with the findings of theBipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, which estimated thatby 2012, entitlement benefits would consume nearly all government revenues,leaving no money for defense, environment, highways etc (Gerston, 1997, p. While welfare rolls havedropped by more than 50% since the early 1990s, a search of news storiesyields many articles that say the law created a new class of working poor(The Washington Times, Sept. 551) Evident from the aforesaidexample, is that both the distribution and existing inequalities in thedistribution of wealth is, or should be, of direct concern to all citizens. Asthings stand, policy makers are now being forced into the realization thatthe zeal to reform welfare has little to do with poverty reduction sincemany a dependent family have been pushed into the already large numbers ofthe working poor (O'Connor, 2000, p.
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Acceptance Essays
