AP Gov Chapter 14 Test Answers – Flashcards

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An obvious and important difference between a president and a prime minister is that the latter always has
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The support of the majority party
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In a parliamentary system, the voters cannot choose
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The prime minister
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More recent presidents have rarely been ______ right before becoming president
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Legislators
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With substantial Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, President Kennedy, during the last year of his presidency, was able to secure passage of ________ of his proposals
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25%
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The text cites the 1946 Marshall Plan and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to illustrate that
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Divided government often produces results comparable to unified government
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The texts suggests that a "unified government" might be
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a myth
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The text observes that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention feared
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monarchy and anarchy
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Alexander Hamilton stood at the Constitutional Convention and gave a five-hour speech calling for
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an elective monarchy
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The cause of those who argued for a single, elected president at the convention was, no doubt, aided by the fact that
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George Washington was the assumed first President
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An aspect of George Washington's personality that encouraged the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to approve an elected presidency was his
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self-restraint
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One of the fears expressed by the Founders about aspects of the presidency was the fear of a president's
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Command of the state militias
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One concern expressed at the convention focused on the possibility that shared powers would cause the president to be a mere "tool" of
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The Senate
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The primary source(s) of the expansion of presidential power can be found in
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Foreign affairs, public opinion, and "inherent" powers
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The first plan suggested at the convention called for the president to be chosen by
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Congress
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The Framers solved the problem of how to elect the president by
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Adopting the electoral college
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Under the original provisions of the U.S. Constitution, the states were to choose presidential electors
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In any way they wanted to
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The Framers assumed that, under the electoral college system, most presidential elections would be decided in the House. Why did this not turn out to be the case?
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Political parties ended up playing a bigger role in elections than the Founders suspected
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Presidents are now limited to two terms by the
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22nd Amendment
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Regarding terms of office, the pattern among most early presidents was to
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Serve two full terms
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How was the legitimacy of the office of president aided during the years of the first presidents
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They left very little for the President to do
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The personality of which president began to alter the relationship between the president and Congress and the nature of presidential leadership
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Andrew Jackson
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Prior to the 1850s, the president who made the most vigorous use of the veto power was
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Andrew Jackson
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Andrew Jackson established the precedent that a president's veto can be used
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To direct the country's policies toward public opinion
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In order to win the presidency today, a candidate must win ______ electoral votes
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270
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In only ____ instances, candidates have won the electoral vote without winning a majority of the popular vote
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3
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The last time a candidate won a majority of the electoral college without winning the popular vote was
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2000
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Given the distribution of electoral votes, a candidate can win the presidency with as few as ____ states
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11, the 10 most populous states plus 1 more state with at least 15 electoral votes
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Most Americans believe we should _______ the electoral college
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abolish
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The text suggests that the abolition of the electoral college might lead to
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A large third party
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The era from 1836 to 1932 is commonly viewed as one of
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Congressional rule
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President Lincoln justified his unprecedented use of the vague powers granted in Article II of the U.S. Constitution by citing
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"implied" or "inherent" powers in order to ensure that the "laws were faithfully executed".
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From the examples of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, one learns that emergency conditions and ________ can offer presidents the opportunity for substantial increases in power
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Strong-willed personalities
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Which president was one of the first to argue for a presidential legislative program
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Woodrow Wilson
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The powers that the president shares with the Senate include
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Making treaties and appointing ambassadors, judges, and high officials
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Grover Cleveland used federal troops to break a labor strike by invoking his power to
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"take care that the laws be faithfully executed"
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According to the text, the greatest source of presidential power lies in the realm of
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Public opinion
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The rule of propinquity states that
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Power is wielded by people who are in the room when a decision is made
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The principal function of the White House Office is to
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Counsel, advise, and support the President by overseeing his/hers political and policy interests
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According to the text, the three methods by which a president can organize his or her personal staff are
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Pyramid, circular, and ad hoc
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President Clinton's use of task forces, committees, and informal groups of friends and advisers is characteristic of which method of staff organization
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Ad hoc
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The method of staff organization that poses the risk of isolating or misinforming the president is called
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Pyramid
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When President Reagan appointed a chief of staff in 1985, he was acting according to what model of organization
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Pyramid
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Today, senior White House staff members are drawn from the ranks of
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The President's campaign staff
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The most important agency in the Executive Office of the President in terms of providing administrative assistance is the
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Office of Management and Budget
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George Washington attempted to get his cabinet members to work together, and the result was
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futile
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The cabinet officers consist of the heads of
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The fifteen major executive departments
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The seating order at cabinet meetings most accurately reflects
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The age of that cabinet member's department
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The prior work experience of presidential appointees to the executive branch is most likely to include
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Government service at some level
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Richard Neustadt used the label in and outers for
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People who alternate between the private and public sector
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A trend in recent cabinet appointments has been to
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Appoint "experts"
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Relationships between White House staff and department heads are typically characterized by
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Tension
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The presidential character of Lyndon Johnson was characterized by
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Face-to-face confrontations
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The presidential character of Richard Nixon was characterized by
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Deep-seeded suspicion
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Which president considered himself an "outsider" and boasted of it
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Jimmy Carter
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The presidential character of Ronald Reagan was characterized by
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Efficient communication
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Which president was elected as a centrist Democrat but immediately pursued liberal policies
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Bill Clinton
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When President Franklin Roosevelt gave the impression of self-confidence and being on top of things, the audience that was most likely to perceive him as effective comprised
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His colleagues in Washington
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When a president makes fire-and-brimstone speeches confirming a shared sense of purpose, he or she is appealing principally to
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Party activists
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When a presidential candidate talks on the campaign trail of the many good things that he would accomplish as president, he or she is appealing principally to
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"the public" who is naïve enough to believe him
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When the president uses the prestige and visibility of the office to guide or mobilize the American people, we say that he or she is using the
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Bully pulpit
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Members of Congress pay attention to the personal popularity of a president because
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They do not like to aggressively oppose the positions of an extremely popular president
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From the time of winning office to the time of leaving it, the popularity of most recent presidents
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Sank like the Titanic
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The classic example of the honeymoon phenomenon was
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FDR and the "first hundred days"
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Veto power and executive privilege give a president both a way of blocking action and a
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Bargaining chip with Congress
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A bill is passed to the president for action while Congress is still in session. After ten days he or she has still not approved it. What happens to the bill
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Becomes law automatically
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When President Reagan was governor of California, he could veto portions of a bill that were irrelevant to the subject of the bill. He was exercising what is called
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line -item veto
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More than 2,500 presidential vetoes have been made since 1789. Congress has overridden about what percentage of these
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4%
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The presidential claims for executive privilege are based on the separation of powers and on
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The necessity to obtain confidential and candid advice
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United States v. Nixon held that there is
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No "absolute unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances"
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The result of the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Nixon was that
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Nixon had to hand over all the evidence that would eventually incriminate him
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The major test of presidential power with respect to impoundment of funds came in the administration of
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Nixon
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If a president has a particular attitude about how a piece of legislation might be implemented, he or she might issue a
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Signing statement
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Members of Congress argue that signing statements are the equivalent of the
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Line-item veto
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President Reagan's approach to his program was to
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Concentrate on a few major initiatives, and leave everything else to subordinates
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A president who is uncertain whether a policy he or she is considering will be controversial would be most likely to
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"float" the idea to the American public
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One major constraint on a president's ability to plan and develop a program is the
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Limit of time
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The typical workweek for a president numbers approximately
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90 hours
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In recent decades, the two key issues that presidents have focused on in planning and developing new programs have been
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The economy, stupid, and foreign affairs
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Every president since Harry Truman has commented that the power of the presidency
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Is limited
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How many times has a president served more than two terms
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once
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How many U.S. presidents have been assassinated while in office
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4
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The constitutional duty of the vice president is to
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Preside over the Senate
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The position of "acting president" was created by
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John Tyler
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Who succeeds to the presidency if both the president and vice president die
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Speaker of the House
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The objects of impeachment have most frequently been
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Federal judges
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________ decide(s) whether to remove the president from office following an impeachment trial
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The Senate
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The fundamental concern in defining the presidential succession is to
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Make the office legitimate
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Concerning the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government, the text concludes that
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They both have become more constrained
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The text argues that many of the problems of bureaucracy in government arise from its
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Size and complexity
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Divided authority over the bureaucracy encourages bureaucrats to play one branch of government off against the other and to make heavy use of
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The media
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Defenders of government by proxy argue that the system
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Produces more flexibility, takes advantage of private and nonprofit skills, and defends the priciples of federalism.
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One complication surrounding the federal bureaucracy is the fact that the Constitution
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Doesn't directly address it
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James Madison argued that the president alone must be able to fire a federal employee because
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The president must be able to control his subordinates
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In the early days of the federal government, the only department that had much power was the
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Treasury Department
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During most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, appointments to the civil service were based primarily on
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Patronage
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The great watershed in the expansion of government bureaucracy in the United States occurred during the
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Late 1800s
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The federal government did not begin to regulate the economy in any large way until
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1887, Interstate Commerce Commission
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A laissez-faire economy is
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An economy ran without the interference of government
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During World War I, President Wilson was authorized by Congress to
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Fix prices, operate the railroads, manage the communications system, and even control the distribution of food.
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Periodically, the size of the bureaucracy has grown substantially. These times of growth have generally occurred during
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Times of war
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A dramatic increase in activism by the federal bureaucracy occurred in the twentieth century, largely as a consequence of
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The Great Depression
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