From the Paper
The elderly population in the United States is growing in number as people live longer and as the baby-boom generation reaches old age, and yet this older generation may have a more precarious existence than has been true in recent decades for that population. There has been much rightful concern about the elderly in America in an era in which the extended family no longer holds sway so that the elderly are more often completely on their own. Another concern has been related to the so-called entitlements in the federal budget--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare--and the impact a reduction, either by design or because the system is not secure, will have on the elderly. In the recent budget debate in congress, Medicare was one of the issues, with some seeing it as politically untouchable, while others considered ways to reform the system..."

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"Twenty-five percent of the American consumer dollar is spent on products regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Each day in America there can hardly be an individual or, for that matter, a pet or stock animal that does not eat foods, take drugs or use devices that have been, at some stage, regulated by the FDA. The control of such a vast array of products has generated a large bureaucracy that has been under intensifying siege for the last fifteen years. The terms of the siege vary considerably. The deregulating impulses motivating the Reagan-Bush administrations produced as much criticism of the FDA as have the pro-regulation feelings of consumer advocacy groups. The agency has been criticized for its excessive indulgence of the industries it regulates and it has been accused by these same industries of producing pointless barriers to economic and..."

From the Paper
" A number of different theoretical perspectives could be brought to bear on the economic and cultural development of a country such as Brazil, and one such perspective is known as dependency theory. Dependency here refers to the theory that development involves the dependency of the Third World on the developed world in a relationship defined by the exploitation of resources. Dependency theory was developed as an explanation for the patterns of development found in Latin America, finding that this pattern had been conditioned by the incorporation of the region into the capitalist mode of production. Development and underdevelopment are seen in terms of dependency theory as part of the same process and not as separate entities. A consideration of this view will be applied to the picture of Brazil that emerges from the book Samba by Alma Guillermoprieto,

From the Paper
"The media in the time of the writing of the Constitution was a much smaller and more timid institution. Today, the media has become dominated by the electronic media, and especially by television, which has become powerful in ways not envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Television has become the conduit of choice for political candidates, and this has altered the style of the political debate, leading to the sound-bites and attack ads that have been so criticized in recent years. Television did not set out to shape the political debate and did not intend to cheapen that debate as seems to have occurred. It might be argued that the media lacks power because it does not seem to be in control of the capabilities it wields, but those capabilities are themselves considerable and have had a massive influence on how Americans conduct themselves in elections and between..."

From the Paper
"CHANGES IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the changes in the unemployment rate during the term of President Clinton who concludes his second term in office in the year 2000. This analysis will consist of the following parts: a) factors affecting unemployment rate; (b) relationship of inflation to job growth; and (c) impact of minimum wage on unemployment.

Factors Affecting Unemployment Rate
There are numerous factors affecting the job market in the United States: size and education of the work force, technology that replaces workers, industry changes and so on. The major ..."

From the Paper
"Plato's Republic is a dialogue in which Socrates investigates the nature of the city-state and what the ideal city-state should be. The philosophical inquiry in this dialogue can be seen as addressing two primary conceptions, conceptions which are linked under the heading of idealism, with one detailing Plato's epistemology and the other his political philosophy. The first is a more metaphysical consideration of the nature of life and the world and how we can know what we know, while the second is the practical application of various concepts to the state to demonstrate the relationship between the individual and his or her society in a utopian city-state such as Plato would create but which does not exist. Plato's Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that..."

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"In the 1980 presidential elections, Ronald Reagan trounced incumbent president Jimmy Carter in the biggest defeat of a president since Franklin D. Roosevelt overwhelmed Herbert Hoover in 1932. Though the American economy was in poor shape in 1980, the problems did not begin to approach the scale of the Great Depression, for which Hoover had been blamed. Nor can President Carter's ill-timed problems with foreign affairs receive all of the blame for his defeat. These factors played major roles in the election, but it was the sharp contrast between the candidates, in terms of ideas, images and campaigns, that resulted in the defeat of an incumbent president, and the election of one of the most popular leaders in American history. In all of these areas, Carter's failures were met by Reagan's successes. Carter was trapped by his 1976 campaign promises.."

From the Paper
"Introduction
The federal government has several agencies dedicated to protecting the rights and welfare of workers; some of these agencies protect wages and salaries while others investigate unfair dismissal. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), created in 1970, seeks to protect workers from unsafe job conditions. That the federal government should be involved in this aspect of the lives of its citizens is not surprising given the involvement that the government has with regard to employment and jobs in general. The federal government sets the minimum wage, administers Social Security (which is the only pension many workers will receive) and serves as an advocate for workers in other situations. This research examines how and why OSHA was created, what its role has been during its quarter century of existence, some.."

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"Thomas Paine's political declaration in his tract Common Sense struck a chord with the Americans of his time. The book was so popular that it went through fifty-six editions in the first year. The book was published anonymously in 1776, and the sentiments expressed in this work by Paine helped direct the energies of the rebels and point the way to American independence from England. What Paine did in this small book was to enunciate important principles of individual human rights and the specific right of the people to challenge unjust laws and an unjust government. If this message found a willing audience, it was because the people of the Americas were ready to hear this message rather than because the message itself broke through some reserve or presented something totally new. What Paine did was to gather together many of the intellectual currents of his time.."

From the Paper
" Pedagogy Of The Oppressed
Introduction
In 1929, the economic crisis in the United States affected Brazil; Paulo Freire's middle-class family began to experience the life of the poor. Living with the agony of hunger and its resulting listlessness, lead Freire to dedicate his life to the struggle against hunger. He decided that education was a major instrument involved in oppression and hunger, and developed a new and creative philosophy of education. His method of teaching has been thought of as an instructional instrument for teaching the Third World; people were taught to overcome traditional structures with knowledge of how become a person and enter the modern world. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed was the first of his writings to be published in the United States (Shaull, as cited.."

From the Paper
" McCAIN-FEINGOLD BILL AND FEDERAL CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
This research paper discusses proposals to reform the financing of federal political campaigns in America, primarily focusing on the bill sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz) and Russell Feingold (D-Wisc), S. 25, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 1997, the reasons why it was introduced, how its principal provisions would change present law, its likely impact, why it has failed to pass in the Senate and alternatives.

The McCain-Feingold bill is designed to remedy partially the defects in the present scheme for regulating federal campaign contributions and spending by curbing some of the abuses revealed in recent campaigns. It failed because of Republican opposition and Senate stratagems which have prevented it from being debated and voted on in the Senate; however, the only lasting solution to.."

From the Paper
" John W. Gardner wrote Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society in 1963. That was a time of great hope for both the individual and society, before the assassination of President Kennedy (for whom Gardner worked), the Vietnam war, Watergate, and the general decline of the American Dream. The book has not stood well the test of time. Twenty-five years later, in a very changed world, Gardner's simple optimism seems naive. Of course, optimism is a good attitude for anyone hoping to live and be creative in a troubled world. However, the idea that "toughminded optimism" is "immensely important" (xii-xiii) does not make a great book, or even a great slim (127 pages of text proper) book.

Gardner's work, therefore, should be viewed in its historical context and should be taken for what it is. .."

From the Paper
"There is a tension evident in the operations of Congress, the presidency, and the bureaucracy in the development of domestic policy and foreign policy between the desire to be seen as promoting representative democracy while at the same time meeting the real need to satisfy the requirements of factions in a pluralist democracy and the demands of powerful elites without appearing to do so to the exclusion of the rights of others. This is a difficult balancing act and prone to produce criticism, and the electoral system by which the President and congress are chosen in particular involves such a need for money that critics can charge that elites and powerful factions have more in-put than they should because they can provide more money. Interestingly, the bureaucracy is seen as unresponsive to most external blandishments and is instead perceived as a."

From the Paper
"According to Max Weber, an intimate interrelationship exists between bureaucracy and democracy. For Weber, an effective democracy cannot exist without an effective bureaucracy, not only in terms of the day-to-day administrative requirements of a modern economy and political system, but also in terms of safeguarding the nation from unbridled corruption and abuse of power by democratically-elected officials and their appointees, as in the case of the Watergate scandal. However, toward the end of his career, Weber had backed away somewhat from his appreciation of the bureaucracy, fearing it could become a government in itself in which order would the only remaining value or ideal. For most of his career, Weber did view the bureaucracy as a dialectical helpmate of democracy.

Broom and Selznick write that Weber takes a generally.."

From the Paper
" Although black/white race relations have improved dramatically in the past two centuries, racial prejudice remains problematic. To understand this prejudice requires an examination of its historical roots. Racial prejudice results from past and present social practices that shape the perceptions of individuals.

Marxism provides an explanation for the historical persistence of racial prejudice in America. The basis of racial prejudice is power imbalance. Prior to the Civil War, much of the United States was actively involved in the slave trade. Africans were transported to American shores and forced into labor. This unfree labor could only be sustained by the adoption of certain attitudes by whites toward blacks: "It was only after Africans were enslaved that African people were represented in.."