25 Sep Paper Topic Prompts

Immigration

Imagine you are tasked with enacting a policy or policies designed to revise immigration policy in the United States and your policy needs sufficient political support to become a law in the United States. 

a. What policy (or policies) would you propose? 

b. What problem(s) are these policies designed to solve, and why do you think it might be an effective policy?

c. What are the primary political obstacles to the legislation? How might you design legislation to overcome them? 

Poverty and Inequality

Poverty affects many Americans, income inequality in the United States is high, and income mobility is quite low compared to other countries. Using the information from the readings and videos about poverty, housing, and inequality, offer an explanation for why these issues are largely ignored in U.S. politics. In other words, why don’t politicians make poverty/inequality reduction a major issue, and why don’t U.S. voters advocate for more attention to this issue? In your answer, you should consider what is known about the policy-making process in the U.S. and the role of organized groups (voters and others) in it.

Institutional Change

Voters in the United States express low levels of satisfaction with the federal government and with the U.S. Congress in particular. A variety of institutional reforms have been proposed to improve voters’ satisfaction with Congress. Three such reforms include: public financing of campaigns, terms limits for members of Congress, and independent redistricting commissions that draw Congressional boundaries after the census. Evaluate two of these reforms and consider whether you would expect them to improve American’s satisfaction with Congress. In doing so, you need to describe the reform and how you would expect it to change the current political system. You must be clear about how these expected changes would (or would not) improve Americans’ satisfaction with Congress. 

Paper Logistics:

1. Each answer requires a minimum of 3 citations to either academic or credible journalistic sources/videos/podcasts. Can be from class materials or outside of class.

a. For help see here: https://libguides.uidaho.edu/Engl102libraryunit/eval

3. Bibliography can be any format as long you identify your sources

Grading Criteria (answer is worth 100 points)

1. Answer all parts of the question (20 points)

2. How well did you justify your answer? (70 points)

a. Consistency of your argument

i. Do your conclusions follow from your evidence and claims?

b. Quality of the empirical and/or logical support for the argument

i. Is the empirical evidence from a credible source?

1. For help see here:

https://libguides.uidaho.edu/Engl102libraryunit/eval

ii. Does the empirical evidence support the claims?

3. Citations and Bibliography (10 pts)