Promote+General+Welfare

=promote the general Welfare,=

Reading
One of the great debates in our society is how much should government do for its citizens? What is meant by the term "general welfare" has been debated since the adoption of our Constitution. Lawmakers and the general public all have varied opinions about how much the government should be involved in our individual lives. The generic sentiment is that the Democratic Party wants government to do more to safe guard our citizens and the Republican Party wants government to be less intrusive, to do less. The following fictional story depicts a dystopian society where oppression and misery result from attempting to achieve perfect social equality. Download the story and read, while thinking about the role of government in your life.

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Watching
The following is a video from Freedom Project, an organization that promotes "a classical education in the tradition of America's founders." As you watch the video, try to look at it with a keen eye. How is the video slanted? Which side of the argument are they trying to convince you to support?

media type="youtube" key="rPrZsrSmrAc" height="315" width="560"

Learning
// Now it is time for your blog post. As you are writing your blog, remember the guidelines you agreed to in our netiquette discussion. Also, do not just answer the questions that are listed below. Use these questions as a guide for your thinking, **do not** just type the question and answer yes or no and // // try to go more in depth. // // You will have to go back and put more depth into your blog if just answer the questions with no extra thoughts. // // Remember this blog is not just for the eyes of your peers in the class, anyone in the world can access your blog and needs to fully understand what you are talking about. This reflection is also how you show me that you completed your reading and watching assignments. Make connections to them in your blog and when you talk about them, create a hyperlink in your blog so your readers can see what you saw. Please see me if you need more guidance in posting a blog. //

After reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron (1961) and watching the Freedom Project's video on promoting general welfare, complete a blog post analyzing your opinion on general welfare. Think about the role of government in your life, how involved should they be? What decisions should we make for ourselves? What decisions should be government control? Please include your thoughts about at least three questions from the following pdf file to answer about the reading in your blog post as well.

Doing
Choose a governmental agency or program from the following list. Research your chosen agency or program, using a minimum of three sources. The following websites can be helpful, the CATO Institute, Brookings Institute, or the Center for American Progress. Use your notes to create a white paper. A white paper (or "whitepaper") is an authoritative report or guide that is often oriented toward a particular issue or problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. Here is an example on accident prevention, farm subsidies, or taxes. Write a white paper that has a minimum length of one page, maximum three pages. Use APA formatting in your paper and for your bibliography. You will type your whitepaper in Google Docs and share it with me. Once it is complete, you will create a new blog post and describe the agency and post a link to your whitepaper.

//Dig Deep//: Use academic (.edu), government (.gov), and other worthy sites to find information on our topic. Keep these in mind when you are looking for information:

• Advocate for furthering the scope of your agency or program. How will you pay for increased costs? OR • Advocate for limiting or eliminating your agency or program. How will society be better off without the benefits? • Identify the three most important services or protections offered by your agency or program. • Compare and contrast the benefits versus the problems created by your agency or program.

Agencies:
 * Women Infants Children (WIC)
 * Title 19
 * EBT
 * Medicare
 * Iowa Department of Human Services or DHS
 * Environmental Protection Agency
 * Food and Drug Administration
 * Iowa Workforce Development