Skip to Main Content | Colorblind Mode: On Off

Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Social Policy

BigThink Video Exercises

The Legacy of the New Deal

Bill Novelli is CEO of AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), a membership organization of 40 million people age fifty and older, half of whom remain actively employed.

1. How does Novelli characterize the problems facing Social Security and Medicare? What does he say is necessary to fix these problems?
2. Do the problems require immediate attention or will they be slow to develop?
3. What does he propose to fix Social Security?

Paul Krugman on the retirement age

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize–winning economist and economics professor at Princeton University.

4. How does Krugman’s approach to Social Security reform differ from Bill Novelli’s? Does he share the same degree of immediacy?
5. In terms of the responses by Novelli and Krugman, how big a problem do you consider Social Security reform?

Can the next Congress pass a comprehensive health care package?

George John Mitchell is a former Democratic Party politician and U.S. Senator from Maine who currently serves as chairman of the worldwide law firm DLA Piper and also as the Chancellor of the Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

6. What do George Mitchell’s comments suggest about the challenges faced by politicians trying to pass social policy legislation?
7. What political processes are essential to the success of social policy legislation?

Submit to Gradebook:

First Name:
 
Last Name:
 
Your Email Address:
 
Your Professor's Email Address:
 

Print This Page
Bookmark and Share

The Norton Gradebook

Instructors and students now have an easy way to track online quiz scores with the Norton Gradebook.

Go to the Norton Gradebook

Norton Ebooks

The ebook version American Politics Today offers the full content of the print version at half the price.

Norton Ebooks

American Politics Today Glossary

Students can download the full glossary here from American Politics Today to study key terms and concepts from the text.