Notes on Presidency Essay

Notes on Presidency Essay Notes on Presidency Essay Chapter 9: Debt total of all money the federal government owes over time Deficit yearly shortfall of revenues in a budget $16 trillion debt $4.3 trillion budget fiscal year 2012 $1.3 trillion deficit Campaigns primary [show up and vote] (first primary: NH) or caucus [meetings and after you vote: people make arguments for a candidate] (first caucus: Iowa) * Regional primary or national primary â€Å"Frontloading† states often want their primary or caucus first because they think it’s more influential to go first McGovern-Fraser Commission: a commission formed at the 1968 Democratic convention in response to demands for reform by minority groups and others who sought better representation. As a result, all delegate selection procedures were required to be open so that the party leaders had no more clout than college students or anyone else who wanted to participate. Money Campaigns: * Candidates need money to build a campaign and get their message out. * There is a common perception that money buys votes and influence * The 1974 act (Federal Election Campaign Act) and its subsequent amendments did the following: In brief: The act created the FEC, provided public financing for presidential primaries and general elections, limited presidential campaign spending, required disclosure, and attempted to limit contributions. * Result of: Watergate scandal (people saw corruption in government) * Meant for reforming campaign finances. * Federal Election Commission (FEC)- a six-member bipartisan agency created by the Federal Election Campaign Fund of 1974. This commission administers and enforces campaign finance laws * Created the Presidential Election Campaign Fund – the FEC is in charge of doling out money from this fund to qualified presidential candidates. * Tax payers can check a box on their taxes ($3) to publically fund presidential primaries/caucuses and the general election (Obama was the first president to reject tax payer money) If a presidential candidate takes the government money, then the candidate must abide by restrictions on spending $ * Matching funds: If a candidate can raise $5,000 in at least 20 states, they’re eligible to the contributions of up to $250 matched by the federal treasury. These candidates must qualify and agree to meet various conditions, ** such as li miting their overall spending to an amount prescribed by federal law** * Provided full public financing for major party candidates in the general election- for each general election, each major party nominee is eligible to receive a fixed amount of money to cover his or her total campaign expenses * Required full disclosure- regardless of whether they accept federal funding, all candidates for federal office must file periodic reports with FEC, listing who contributed and how much money it was. * Limited contributions- congress limited individual donations/contributions to presidential and congressional campaigns to $1,000. Also, limits on PAC donations to candidates political parties * Buckley v. Valeo (1976): challenged the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Supreme Court ruled that it was a violation of freedom of speech (the portion of the act that limited individual contributions to their own campaign) result you can spend unlimited amounts of your own $ on your own campaign * Another loophole opened in 1979 with an amendment to the act that made it easier for political parties to raise money for voter registration drives, and distribution of campaign material at grass-roots level or for generic party advertising * Soft money- political contributions earmarked for party building expenses at basic level or for generic party advertising. Soft money donations are not subject to contribution limits. (generally from corporations) * McCain – Feingold [Bipartisan (2002), Campaign Reform ACT (BCRA)] Banned soft money:

10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure

10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure 10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure 10 Tips to Balance Parallel Sentence Structure By Mark Nichol In crafting sentences that compare one thing to another or represent one thought in contrast to another, writers often omit key words or phrases because they misunderstand how one phrase is balanced against another. In constructing sentences with parallel structure, think of the two parallel elements as figures on a seesaw, and the connecting word or phrase as the fulcrum, then check whether the elements on either side of the fulcrum are equally balanced: 1. â€Å"We often pay more attention to them than our own children.† This ambiguous sentence means either that we pay more attention to something than we do to our children, or that we pay more attention to something than our children do. This slight revision reflects that the writer meant the former choice. (â€Å"We pay more attention to them† is balanced against â€Å"[we pay attention)] to our own children.†): â€Å"We often pay more attention to them than [we pay] to our own children.† 2. â€Å"His version is created not with brush and ink, but countless Lego blocks.† The parallel phrases in this sentence, balanced by the fulcrum but, are not â€Å"with brush and ink† and â€Å"countless Lego blocks,† but â€Å"brush and ink† and â€Å"countless Lego blocks,† so repeat with: â€Å"His version is created not with brush and ink, but with countless Lego blocks.† 3. â€Å"The story here is not one of privacy infringement so much as the way real estate is changing because of technology.† The fulcrum in this sentence is â€Å"so much as,† and the phrase â€Å"is not one of privacy infringement† must be balanced against one that starts with the same verb: â€Å"The story here is not one of privacy infringement so much as it is the way real estate is changing because of technology.† 4. â€Å"The rainwater boon isn’t so much about taste as reliability in a region where hundreds of wells dried up in the last drought.† This sentence has the same fulcrum as the previous example does, but notice how the sentence reads more smoothly and has more impact because of the inversion of the constituent phrases: â€Å"In a region where hundreds of wells dried up in the last drought, the rainwater boon isn’t so much about taste as it is about reliability.† 5. â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not effective or even dangerous.† Without the repetition of the phrase â€Å"that are,† this sentence crashes to a halt with the false parallel terms effective or dangerous. Omit the first word and the fulcrum from the equation, and the resulting sentence, â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not even dangerous,† does not retain the meaning. The point about dangerous products needs a complete phrase: â€Å"They protect consumers from purchasing products that are not effective or that are even dangerous.† 6. â€Å"They believe in cultural and racial diversity, but not diversity of opinions.† Take away the first phrase, and you’re left with an omission in â€Å"They (don’t) believe diversity of opinions,† so the preposition in must accompany both phrases: â€Å"They believe in cultural and racial diversity, but not in diversity of opinions.† 7. â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance and support of these books.† If â€Å"and support† is omitted, the phrase â€Å"assistance of these books† stands out as faulty, so repair the error with one of these two options: â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance with and support of these books,† or â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance and for your support of these books.† Better yet, perhaps, is â€Å"Thanks for your generous assistance in supporting these books.† 8. Beagles rely on their acute sense of smell to chase their quarry and alert hunters with their high-pitched barks. Beagles rely on smell to chase their quarry and alert the hunters? No. Their smelling and their barking are two parallel attributes. This sentence requires two independent clauses with parallel subjects: â€Å"Beagles rely on their acute sense of smell to chase their quarry, and they alert hunters with their high-pitched barks.† (A fulcrum assisted by a â€Å"not only . . . but also† phrase might seem useful at first glance, but that revision alters the writer’s intent.) 9. â€Å"Those who clashed with the color scheme were getting fired or relegated to the stockroom.† Without a balance to either side of or, the sentence implies that people were getting fired to the stockroom or relegated to the stockroom. Repeating the verb clarifies that only the second option involved the stockroom: â€Å"Those who clashed with the color scheme were getting fired or were relegated to the stockroom.† 10. â€Å"Families have been leaving the city not so much because of the form housing takes but its price tag.† The parallel phrases here are (or should be) â€Å"because of the form housing takes† and â€Å"because of its price tag.† Without the following fix to the second phrase, the reader trips into a prose pothole: â€Å"Families have been leaving the city not so much because of the form housing takes but because of but its price tag.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Comparative Forms of AdjectivesDriver License vs. Driver’s License50 Musical Terms Used in Nonmusical Senses