Chapter 14 Quiz – Flashcards
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The first regulatory agencies established by Congress were
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Independent regulator comissions
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According to the text, what would be the most likely outcome if the federal government were to cease all economic regulation?
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The marketplace would fall into chaos
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The USA Patriot Act
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Allows the attorney general to detain any foreigner suspected of posing a threat to internal security
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Executive privilege refers to
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The claim that confidential communications between a president and close advisers should not be revealed without the consent of the president
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Ronald Reagan's inability to dismantle the Department of Education reflects the power of
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Iron triangles
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Which of the following is an agency created by Congress to assist it in overseeing the federal bureaucracy?
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General Accounting Office
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Which of the following is not part of the Justice Department?
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The Internal Revenue Service
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Individual members of Congress can discover questions of public responsibility when engaged in
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Constituent case work
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What is an independent agency?
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An agency that is not part of any Cabinet department
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Congress was attempting to strike a balance between the need for secrecy in national security of individuals to know what their government is doing when it passed the ___ Act.
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Freedom of Information
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What was the chief bureaucratic flaw identified by the 9/11 Commission?
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There was a lack of communication between domestic and foreign security agencies.
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Which of the following is the best description of an iron triangle?
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The stable relationship between a bureaucratic agency, a clientele group, and a legislative committee
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The ____ is the center of military policy and management.
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Joint Chiefs of Staff
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The most significant example of devolution in recent decades has been in the area of
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Welfare policy
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Which of the following is not a task of the Treasury Department?
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Setting interest rates
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Devolution describes a process through which
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The federal government is downsized by delegating the implementation of programs to state and local governments
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Which statement about regulatory agencies is correct?
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No new regulatory programs have been established since the 1970s
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Making permanent cuts in existing agencies is often difficult because
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Most agencies have a supportive constituency that will fight to reinstate any cuts that are made.
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The "virtual fourth branch of government" refers to
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Government contracting
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Which of the following is not a federal department entrusted with providing national security?
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Police
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In order to change the level of national economic activity and defend the value of the dollar in international trade, the federal government
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Manipulates interest rates
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The Freedom of Information Act is designed to
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Make more national security documents available to the public
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At its peak in ___, the federal bureaucracy had ___ employees, not including military personnel.
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1968, 3 million
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Public bureaucracies are powerful because
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Legislatures, chief executives, and the people delegate vast power to them to make sure a particular job is done
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The head of a department is called the
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Secretary
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Which of the following statements about congressional oversight of the bureaucracy is most accurate?
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While the number of oversight hearings has increased over time as the bureaucracy has expanded, the extent of oversight does depend somewhat on which party controls the White House
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Bureaucracy, literally translated, means
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Rule by offices and desks
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The concept of oversight refers to the effort made by
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Congress to make executive agencies accountable for their actions
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The response to the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded terror-level warning system reveals
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That bureaucratic agencies, like politicians, must pay attention to public opinion
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Which of the following statements best describes the trend in government secrecy since 2001?
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The number of classified documents has increased substantially since 2001 while the pages of material that have been declassified has declined sharply
