POLISCI 207 – Jan 23, 2014- Prayers in public schools are actually unconstitutional because the constitution separates church and state, and since the public schools are funded by the state, it is illegal. - Local governments cannot create laws that violate either State or National laws. - Why do governments create laws that are unconstitutional?? This could be due to job security. If a law is extremely poplar, then people will vote yes to keep their popularity up and keep their job security higher. Federal System- Congress and the President- State Legislatures and executives- U.S. Supreme Court- The U.S. Supreme Court has been called the “Least Dangerous Branch of Government”. This branch just so happens to be the strongest, and most helpful unit of the government. - Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, this gives them the power through Judicial Review, to interpret the laws, and decide them accordingly without having to focus on job security. 2011 Expenditures- Total Spending $6.5 Trillion - 58% Federal- 42% State and Local (9% from local govt.)- $13,800 per capita - Federal Govt. spent a total of 67% of the $6.5 Trillion - Government spending:1. Health Care2. Social Security (Largely National)3. Education (Largely State) 4. General Public Service5. National Defense (ALL National) 6. Economic Affairs7. Public and Order Safety8. Housing and Community Services9. Recreation and Culture- “The poor people in the country use the most amount of govt. resources.” Themiddle class and up spend more of the govt. money on national expense. People with cars are consuming money from the nations infrastructure through roads and such. Airports. All nationally based functions.- The most money spend by govt. is spent on health care, which in a large part goes to administration at the hospitals and other places of care, not to the actual care taking of individuals. Also, paying the manufactures of the medicalequipment, MRI, CAT, ect.- When hospitals itemize everything, and charge you accordingly, you are actually increasing the money required to run the hospital because you have to hire people to keep track of the items, and a person to price them, and a person for this and that, which all in all just increase the amount of money required to run the hospital. - For social security to work, you have to have more workers and less retirees. - When the laws for social security were created, life expectancy was not that high, so the system worked because people died off. Now, people are living longer and it is providing issues with the amount of people on social security. - When it comes to military spending, most of the money is spent in satisfying the contractors, and lobbyists. However, when the budget cuts come in, it goes through the soldiers pay and retirement and such first. - Economic Affairs are transactions such as the GM bailout.Comparing States- You compare states using:- Physical and Demographics- Size and Population, Percentage Metropolitan- Wealth – High Income- Social Issues – Murder, Unemployment, Education of Children- Coping with Social Issues – Death Penalty, Costs of Public