POLS 207 Prof. Lim - Prof Lim POLS 207 Lecture notes PDF

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

o A TABLE OF CONTENTS o A TABLE OF CONTENTS Tuesday August 28, 2018 Thursday August 30, 2018 Tuesday September 4, 2018 Thursday September 6, 2018 Tuesday, September 11th, 2018 (begin Chapter 2) EXAM 1 REVIEW SESSION (Thursday, September 13th) POLS 207 TEST 1 REVIEW CHAPTER 1 REVIEW CHAPTER 2 REVIEW Thursday, September 20th, 2018 (begin Chapter 3) Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 Thursday, September 27, 2018 Tuesday, October 2nd, 2018 (begin Chapter 4) *know figure 4.5-6* Thursday October 4, 2018 (begin Chapter 5) Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 “Tuesday, October 16th, 2018 (begin Chapter 6) Thursday, October 18th, 2018 Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018 (begin Chapter 7) Thursday, October 25th, 2018 tuesday, October 30th, 2018 (begin Chapter 8) Tuesday, November 6th, 2018 Tuesday November 13th, 2018 (begin Chapter 10) Thursday, November 15th, 2018 Tuesday, November 27th, 2018

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

Tuesday August 28, 2018 Go over the syllabus.

Thursday August 30, 2018 1st Slide: American Federalism: ● 50 state governments ● 1 Federal government ● 90,000 local governments Texas: ● 254 Counties ● 1,209 cities ● 1,082 school districts ● 2,291 special districts 2nd Slide: 2014 Expenditures ● Total government spending = $7.3 trillion ○ 60% federal ○ 40% state and local (7% from federal government) ○ Per Capita $20,693 ● Actuals ○ 65% Fed ○ 35% state and local ● Why aren’t states borrowing money and paying interest? Public policy. States must have a balanced budget. The federal government does not. 3rd Slide: Comparing States and Communities ● Physical and demographics ○ Size and pop. ○ Percentage metropolitan(50k/100k) ● Wealth ○ High income ● Social Problems ○ Murder ○ Unemployment ○ Educating children ● Coping with social problems ○ Death penalty ○ Costs of public education

Tuesday September 4, 2018 Missing the notes from this day.

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

Thursday September 6, 2018 ●

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Comparing States and Communities ○ Physical and demographic ■ Size and population ■ Percentage metropolitan (50k/100k) ○ Wealth ■ High income ■ Higher education ■ States with higher income have higher level jobs which brings in higher revenue to the state ○ Social problem/ ■ Murder ■ We want lower murder rates so we create public policies ■ There's always a base amount of murders, has more to do with income more than anything ■ Unemployment ■ Educating children ■ The problem is every once in a while, people don’t believe in public education ■ Why should they be paying taxes to educate their neighbors children? ■ It’s a social problem when you do not educate them ○ Coping with social problems ■ Death penalty ■ Used as a deterrent for murder ■ Insanity - something doesn’t work and you keep doing it ■ Ex: the death penalty ■ Costs of public education STATISTICS LIE Life expectancy low partly due to health insurance, emergency services ○ Life expectancy decreases as infant mortality increases; negative relationship Property crimes are higher in states with different public policies ○ Ex: Washington state is super high because they just get "a slap on the wrist" for theft

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

Tuesday, September 11th, 2018 (begin Chapter 2) Correlation: degrees of inherent association between different variables Ex. Education and income are positively associated with each other. As education levels rise, income also tends to rise. However, the correlation does not prove cause and effect. ● Correlation values are represented by r, which ranges from -1 to +1. ○ Positive values = directly related (both variables increase/decrease one of the variables increase together) ○ Negative values = inversely related (one rises, the other decreases) ○ We don’t need to know how to calculate these for this class ■ ...but essentially you’re going to make a line as close to as many of the dots as you can, then add up how far all of the points are from the line ● For this class (you can estimate if the numbers are close) ○ r ≤ 0.3 means there is no relationship ○ 0.3 < r < 0.4 means weak relationship ○ 0.5 < x < 0.6 means moderate relationship ○ r ≥ 0.7 means strong relationship ● Is correlation evidence of cause and effect? → NO. That would require more research to confirm. Correlation is just an association. Scatterplots: show two types of information (2 variables) ● These show correlations ○ The closer your data points are to being a perfect line, the stronger your correlation. ● They also make it easy to see outliers (data points far from the average)

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Fig 2.4: Income vs % High School Completion. ○ r = 0.4 (weak/moderate relationship) ○ Since Texas is above the line, that means that our income is higher than you would expect for someone with that % high school completion → good Fig 2.5: Income vs % Bachelor Degree. ○ r = 0.76 (strong relationship) ○ Strong correlation than income vs. % high school → % bachelor’s degree is a better predictor of income than high school. Table 2.1: ○ Shows that, as time goes on, high school degrees have been less useful in predicting income and bachelor’s degrees have become more useful. ○ In the late 70s, rB.S. overtook rH.S. ○ This is because now high school diplomas are less sufficient in getting a job; more employers expect college degrees Fig 2.9: State Revenue vs State Expenditures ○ r = 0.93 (very strong relationship) ○ In reality, this can be explained because states need to keep a balanced budget (so it is important for revenue and expenditures to balance) Fig 2.11: Poverty vs Income ○ r = -.65 (moderate/strong inverse relationship) ○ As income rises, poverty decreases

Issues of Empirical Analysis: ● Measurement ○ Always use rates, not the raw numbers ■ Of course California and Texas have larger numbers of people living in poverty. They have way more people, so you should use the % in poverty ○ Need to account for inflation when dealing with money over time ● Variable Linkage ● Is there a relationship? ○ Causal Relationships: ■ Show cause and effect. Ex. age and height are correlated (you get taller as you grow up) ■ Requires more rigorous analysis to prove the cause-and-effect ○ Spurious Relationships: ■ “It just so happens…” ■ There is a correlation, but there isn’t actually a causal relationship

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP ■

This website shows that completely unrelated variables can be correlated even though there’s no cause and effect

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

EXAM 1 REVIEW SESSION (Thursday, September 13th) Dr. Lim’s study tips: · Read through materials (textbook + class notes) twice · General rule of thumb: spend x hours in class → spend 3x hours studying · Make flash cards: o Ex. Education vs. Income. r = 0.76 o Ex. Life expectancy x infant mortality r = -0.78 (color code for +/- and maybe weak/strong/etc.) o Understand the relationships so that you don’t have to purely memorize. o Color can be easier to remember than the numbers · Lots of scatterplots in Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 – write out the r-values. · She likes questions like: Which of the following is true (or which is false?) · She won’t ask us to memorize the exact r-value (because these things change in time anyway) – just know if it’s +/- and weak/moderate/strong/etc. · Read the problem (is it asking total gov expenditure, federal gov expenditure, state+local gov expenditure, etc.?)

POLS 207 TEST 1 REVIEW Texas vs. the Average of the U.S. ●

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Top o Population o Per capita income o Persons below poverty level o Incarcerations o Violent crime o Unemployment o Maternal death rate o Non-citizen population o Property crimes o Executions Middle o Bachelor’s degree o Median household income o Number of prisoners o Infant mortality rate o Life expectancy Bottom o High school o Max monthly income for a family of 3 to qualify for TANF benefits o Tax burden Above average o Religiosity

Texas Rank out of 50 States ●

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Top o o o Middle o o o o Bottom o

Population Metropolitan population Gallup Index of Well-Being Unemployment Murder Population with bachelor’s degree or higher Per capita income Population with high school degree or higher

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

Exam 1 Slides ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

White population has declined AA population has increased Hispanic population has increased Asian population has increased Hispanics have the highest fertility rate TX population today is mostly Anglo and Hispanic Hispanic population is projected to rise considerably In 1850, TX population was mostly Anglo Correlations are a technique for expressing relationships between quantitative (number) terms Motion graphs add information about time Motion graphs are animated scatterplots 0.60 (moderate) is the correlation of high school or bachelor’s degrees between 1990 and 2009

Exam 1 Notes ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

U.S. has 90,000 local governments TX has 254 counties TX has 1,209 cities TX has 1,082 school districts States must have a balanced budget Federal government does NOT have to have a balanced budget States with higher income have higher level jobs which brings higher revenue to the states The death penalty is used as a deterrent for murder Insanity is when something doesn’t work out but you keep doing it Life expectancy is low partly due to health insurance and emergency services Life expectancy decreases as infant mortality increases Property crimes are higher in states with different public policies Correlations are degrees of inherent association between different variables Correlations do NOT prove cause and effect Education and income are positively related to each other When education levels rise, income levels rise Correlations are represented by R Positive values are directly related meaning they both increase and decrease together Negative values are inversely related meaning when one increases the other decreases No relationship o R < = 0.30 Weak relationship o 0.30 < R < 0.40 Moderate relationship o 0.50 < R < 0.604 Strong relationship o R > = 0.70 Scatterplots show 2 types of information in one graph (2 variables) In a scatterplot, the closer the data points are together, the stronger the correlation Income vs. high school completion has a moderate relationship Income vs. bachelor’s degree has a strong relationship The percentage of bachelor’s degrees is a better predictor of income than high school State revenue vs. state expenditures has a strong relationship Poverty vs. income has strong inverse relationship As income rises, poverty decreases Always use rates, not raw numbers Casual relationships show cause and effect (ex: age and height) Casual relationships require more rigorous analysis to prove the cause-and-effect Spurious relationships mean there is a correlation but there isn’t actually a causal relationship (it’s just kind of by chance) White population in the U.S. is decreasing Fertility rate affects population change (as does immigration) TX is 2nd largest by area TX is 2nd largest by population TX has the largest GDP in the country TX has the 10th largest GDP in the world TX is ranked 49th /50th in health insurance coverage The states created the government U.S. has a relatively weak government

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

TOP Less than 3 million are receiving welfare In TX, a family of 3 can receive welfare if they make more than $401 In TX, a family of 3 with no income receives $350 per month People receive educational assistance instead of cash assistance Most people who receive welfare are mothers with children or the unemployed A negative relationship is also called an inverse relationship Infant mortalities is the live births that die before the age of one Tax burden is the percent of the income that goes to the government In the past, income was more correlated with percent of high school completion From the 1990’s onward, there’s a strong relationship between income and percent of bachelor’s degrees Government revenue increases with per capita income State and local expenditures tend to balance due to public policy Incarceration and violent crime have a moderate relationship Poverty vs. income has a negative (inverse) relationship Life expectancy vs. infant mortality has a negative (inverse) relationship For life expectancy vs. infant mortality, states above the line are over-performing (public policy is right) and states below the line have more dying younger than predicted (bad public policy)

Exam 1 Book ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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The regional government administer policies Currently, policies are made primarily at the state level In June 2013, the Supreme Court recognized same sex marriage In TX, marijuana is allowed for medical reasons in limited situations or legal defense The fiscal year in TX is from September 1 to August 31 More than 90% of students at Texas A&M are convinced that Texas is the best state States with large geographic area need more expensive highways with smaller populations to pay for them Upper New England, the Great Plains, and the Western mountain states have fewer people More populous, diverse states have a full range of occupations In 2015, the population of the U.S. was 85% metropolitan TX is 92% metropolitan States with higher per capita income have more resources to deal with social problems and providing government services There is a broad band of poor states across the South, Southwest, and up through the Great Plains and mountain West The Northeastern states and Wyoming have the wealthiest citizens With some exceptions, states that are more populous and are more metropolitan have higher unemployment The South has very high murder rates with Louisiana being the highest Many incentives like startup cash, land, temporary or permanent tax exemptions have been offered by TX and its local governments Funds for national defense, SS, and Medicare are entirely federal Funds for education, public order and safety, and recreation and culture are almost entirely by the states Funds for health care in general, economic affairs, and public services are divided between federal and state governments In the U.S. taxes provide the largest share of government revenue High school education o 1960 41% o 2014 88% Bachelor’s degree or higher o 1960 8% o 2014 32% Per capita income is the best available measure of state wealth State per capita income is the total personal income of each state divided by its population o TX is $45,426 The South stands out as poorly educated

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

● The correlation between total state personal income and number of state residents living in poverty in 2014 is .96 (very strong) ● The correlation between violent crime rate and incarceration rate is .45 (moderate) ● The correlation of per capita income and high school completion is .43 (weak) ● The correlation of PCI and bachelor’s degrees is .76 (strong) ● The correlation of per capita state and local government revenue and PCI is .69 (strong) ● The correlation of per capita state and local government revenue and bachelor’s degree or higher is .35 (weak) ● The correlation of per capita state and local government spending and revenue is .93 (very strong) ● The correlation of poverty and per capita income is -.65 (strong negative) ● The correlation of life expectancy and infant mortality is -.78 (strong negative) ● States with more poverty also have more personal income, property crimes, and released from prison

Government Spending ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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Most expensive to least expensive ○ health care, income security, education, general public service, national defense in 2014, per capita spending was $20,693 in 2014, the federal government spent $4.4 trillion in 2014, the state and local governments spent $2.9 trillion in 2014, the government spent a total of $7.3 trillion government spending was 60% federal and 40% state and local 3 types of government spending ○ federal spending from federal funds, state and local spending from federal funds, state and local spending from state funds \ health care is over 29% of all spending income security is 23% of all spending ○ income security includes SS, welfare, social services, unemployment education is 14% of all spending ○ state and local governments pay 88% for education general public services is 13% of all spending national defense is 9% of all spending the federal government spend 60% of GPS expenditures health and income security make up more than half of total spending payroll taxes fund SS and partially fund medicare children are the largest medicaid group local government borrowing is constrained by state laws U.S. national defense is #1 in the world public order and safety are paid mainly through state and local funds the federal government pays 90% of funding for housing and community services state and local governments pay 83% of recreation and culture costs from their own funds state and local officials mostly decide the laws, set taxes for government services, and decide how extensive the services will be

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

CHAPTER 1 REVIEW Populations: -Understand the trends -Ex. White population in America is decreasing -Fertility rate affects population change (immigration also affects it). Fertility rate = 2.1 to sustain the population without immigration -“Texas vs. U.S.” -don’t memorize exact numbers, but know how Texas is doing compared to the average (top/bottom/middle) -2nd largest by area, 2nd largest by population, largest total GDP in the country, 10th largest GDP in the world -10th largest GDP in the world à should be doing well since we’re “rich” -“Is Texas typical?” No, we have Jimbo!!!! Texas Health Insurance Coverage -we’re ranked 49th/50th in health insurance coverage, your politics affect if you think this is good or bad American Federalism: -states created the government and their local governments, etc. -U.S. has relatively weak federal government (state + local controls a lot) Qualifying for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) Benefits -hot button issue (“too many people on welfare” vs. “need more welfare support”) -less than 3 million people are receiving welfare -Texas: a family of 3 can receive welfare if they make < $401 -family of 3 with no income in Texas receives $350 per month -more people are receiving educational assistance (instead of cash assistance) -most people receiving welfare are mothers with children (because if they were to work, the salary would go towards childcare and not really be so different) or the unemployed (because minimum wage would not be enough to live on without assistance) Infant Mortality: Live births that die before the age of one Tax burden: % of income that goes to the government

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Dr. Phaik C. Lim - POLS 207 (State and Local Government) TOP

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW Empirical Relationships in Scatterplots and Correlations: Correlation (r) ranges from -1 to 1. (negative means inverse relationship) r < 0.3 means no relationship 0.5 < r < 0.6 moderate relationship r > 0.7 strong relationship Fig 2.4 & Fig 2.5 Per capita income is more strongly correlated with % bachelor’s than % high school Table 2.1 In the past, income was more correlated with % high school 1990’s onwards: strong relationship between income and % bachelor’s Fig 2.7 Government r...