The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or the Pork Barrel is the annual or regular allocation of lump sum discretionary funds among the President, the legislators or any other public officers. It gives way for the public officials, especially the Congressmen, to have an easy access to capital and provide funds or services to their projects and to their districts, respectively. According to Leonor M. Briones, there are two components of government budget; one which is managed by different departments and agencies and the another which is labeled as the Special Purpose Fund (SPF). As part of the legislative branch of the government, the Senate and the Congress has the “power of the purse”. This means that they have the sole authority to appropriate and release the public funds of the government. However, PDAF and the said components of the government budget suffer from lack of transparency and abuse of discretion that lead to a political scandal—the Pork Barrel Fund Scam. Last year, on the 12th of July, Benhur Luy, stand as a whistleblower for the scandalous Pork Barrel Fund Scam. He was the one who exposed the mastermind of the scam, Janet Lim Napoles, …show more content…
He said that regulating political contributions is one of the keys to strengthen the political party system and end the patronage politics in the country. (Sy, 2013) Looking at the other side of the Pork Barrel,though, we will see that it helps in some cases like in education. It paves ways for the students to study by granting them scholarships. This also helps to give aide to the casualties of calamities in the country. There is just this big problem that makes it unconstitutional—the way the politicians misbehave by stealing the funds and doing the prohibited acts in the Pork Barrel Fund
When Billy Long campaigns during election season, as a politician, he listens to his constituents as they voice their concern with the issues and policies that are damaging to his district. It is his responsibility to then help the citizens and ensure that he is able to do everything within his jurisdiction to mitigate these very difficulties his constituents face. If he is successful, there are two parties whom benefit. His constituents benefit by having their problems resolved and the less obvious, but perhaps more concentrated benefit goes to Representative Long himself because he is now in a position to claim credit. Passing certain legislation that he promised to his district, gives Billy Long leverage in the next election cycle because he would possess the ability to boast a successful track record and claim credit for bettering the lives of individuals within his district.
A publicly funded debt connects states and individuals closer to the government and gives it a reason to continue functioning for the people. Furthermore, It allows individuals to become budget conscious
As with the other legislatives bureaus, the Fiscal Bureau is thouroughly bipartisan. The duties of this bureau include presenting the Legislature with any relevant fiscal information that may assist them in decision making, suggesting alternatives to both the state budget and state expenditures, and serving as staff to the Joint Committee on Finance. Additionally, they respond to any requests made by the Joint Committee or the standing Legislature regarding fiscal matters and complete fiscal analyses of state programs to aid the legislature in its decisions regarding these programs. The organization of the bureau is broken down into sections such as Education and Building Programs, Health Services and Insurance, Transportation and Property Tax Relief, and more. This way, requests for information can be filed into one of six categories and handled by that specific section.
According to the Constitution, Congress is the only one who has “a power of purse”, but after World War I, the federal government recognizes that it is better to let the president involve in the budget process. Therefore, the Congress passes the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 to entrust important priority setting and responsibilities to the presidents who are so inclined the opportunity to dominate budgetary politics. The act also creates the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review funding requests from government departments and assist the president in devising the budget. The OMB office, which contains hundreds of finance experts who only work for the president, assists the president to deal with Congress on budget issues. Even though the president has to submit the finance request to Congress to revise and make a decision, the president has more advantages than the Congress because of his huge information sources, finance experts in his office, and his persuasive skills.
It says that social movement organizations influence legislators to assure them that their supporters will vote for them on Election Day. The second is called financial clout. It argues that donating money to members of Congress, this attempts to shape how a policy is viewed and how the legislation is produced. It could also signal policy preferences to legislators, because of this donation. The last model is called policy expertise.
As a result, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the provision was unconstitutional (Legislative Analyst’s Office,
Having the background and merit in politics, along with a higher education will allow these political actors to make good decisions regarding the public good. Madison truly believes that the people will elect be more likely to vote for men with high merit, good character, and good intentions- instead of political elites working in their own
Its funding in things such as education and medical research are meant for improving our society’s lifestyle. The thought that are taxes are going into so many beneficial programs and expenditures helps spark opportunities for individuals and businesses to grow, expand, and most importantly, to move further ahead into more innovate new
Every year the United States government has to agree on a federal budget for fiscal policy. The federal budget breaks down how and on what the country’s revenue will be spent. The budget is divided into several parts, including military spending, veteran benefits, health and science, education, transportation, etc. The national government sets aside approximately fifty-four percent of the federal revenue for military expenses such as guns, tanks, ammunition, etc. These expenses do not include the pay of those who serve in the military.
This essay will discuss the impact of lobbyist on legislation in Washington, DC and the amount of dollars spent to influence federal policies. Throughout a normal day in Washington DC, the hustle and bustle of lobbyist is taking place in the Capital building, White House and along K Street, which is the home of many of the lobbying firms. There are special interest groups, corporations and industries that hire in-house lobbyist or lobbyist firms to influence legislation to benefit their cause. For example, some of these causes may include, but are not limited to tax breaks, subsidies and changes to current regulations or laws.
They prepare the city’s budget, and after approved by legislature, the central budget office becomes the control (Lynch & Smith, 2008). As the budget process is being formulated and executed in these stages, both departments together, support their combined recommendations to other departments such as the chief executive and legislative policy makers. Political leaders, such as the governor, begin using the budget’s information to execute their goals in either publicizing their approval in funding or reducing programs and activities. All departments hold leverage over one another until the final stages of the budget process. This is mainly because of revenue and expenditures documented with major decisions to allocate funds accordingly in the best form of
An educational environment provides students with various ethnicities the opportunity to discover the cultures of those around them. However, this can only occur if all those students stay in school. Responding to this issue will allow minorities to achieve higher status jobs thus enabling them to be more represented in government. As more individuals of a minority are educated, they will be able to run for public offices and reveal policies that would benefit a greater proportion of Texas. Additionally, those that have an acceptable amount of wealth tend to participate more in government whether through office or just voting in elections.
However, it can also be good due to the fact that you have to influence less people to join your perspective and less people you have to go against. This is especially good for lobbyist. Lobbyist can influence the Texas Legislature more easily in this way. Also because there is less people to go against and lobbyist that influence the legislators, the government becomes more corrupt.
This is because the United States government is so large, it is virtually impossible to track all of the various federal agencies’ programs across countries and sectors to pinpoint the exact number or amount of assistance their government provides, in terms of the citizens’ taxpayer dollars going to foreign government, or even just their militaries. However, we can focus on the three main programs where military funding is allocated, namely foreign military financing(FMF), peacekeeping operations(PKO), and the International Military Education and Training Program(IMET). In foreign military financing, some of their objectives include to improve the military capabilities of key friendly countries to contribute to international crisis response operations, including peacekeeping and humanitarian crises, to promote bilateral, regional and multilateral coalition efforts, notably in the global war of terrorism and to assist the militaries of friendly countries and allies to procure U.S defense articles and services that strengthen legitimate self-defense capabilities and security needs. FMF is vital to supporting U.S coalition partners in the war on terrorism. It promotes U.S national security by strengthening military support for democratically-elected governments, contributing to regional and global stability, and containing
Increasing school funding may cost money but it would help the future of