assigment54323

QUESTION 1

Week 3: Assignment N°1

Please, read the  Minicase: Acting IG for Homeland Security–Too Close to the Department (page 328 of your  textbook ). Then, prepare an executive report, of not more than 2.5 pages APA standardized to 2-line spacing, minimum three references, in which you describe the main concepts, and what your proposals are to avoid such issues.

Minicase: Acting IG for Homeland Security–Too Close to the Department The acting IG for Homeland Security, Charles K. Edwards, stepped down, after a congressional investigation of charges of nepotism, misuse of office, and an overly close relationship with the administration. 1 He was charged with delaying investigations and altering reports to protect the administration. The investigation began because Edwards reportedly withheld information and soft-pedaled the incident in which the president’s security detail dallied with prostitutes in Colombia. According to a report by a congressional oversight committee, he shared drinks and dinners “with department leaders and gave them inside information about the timing and findings of investigations.” He was charged with accepting guidance from the political advisers of the department head on the wording and timing of three reports. Reportedly, he asked the secretary’s advisers how he should respond to questions at a hearing. Committee officials concluded that because he was actively seeking the permanent appointment, he was not engaging in real oversight.

QUESTION 2

Please, read the  Minicase: Balance in the Federal Highway Trust Fund (page 239 of your  textbook ). Then, prepare an executive report, of not more than 2.5 pages APA standardized to 2-line spacing, minimum three references, in which you describe the main concepts, and what your proposals are to avoid such issues.

Minicase: Balance in the Federal Highway Trust Fund The national level Highway Trust Fund is an account based on gas taxes primarily for building and repairing the nation’s highways. When projects are finished, the states bill the federal government for reimbursement from the Highway Trust Fund. Revenues have to be greater than obligations, not just greater than outlays, because the states are running up bills that they have not yet submitted for reimbursement. By next year, there should be more money in the fund to pay off the bills that are being incurred now but that will not be presented until next year or the year after. So how can anyone tell if the trust fund is really balanced at any time? How can Congress or the president ensure that the states do not spend more money than the fund can expect to receive? And if there is a surplus, how does anyone know how much it is? When money is committed by the states, it shows up in the trust fund as obligated but not yet spent. So the total in the fund remains high, although much of the money is already committed and cannot be spent on anything else. The result of not subtracting this committed money from the trust fund total is to make the balance in the fund look greater than it really is. This can help to make the federal budget as a whole look balanced, if the “surplus” in the Highway Trust Fund is counted as part of the consolidated balance of the federal government. But the result is misleading. Attributing future expenses to the present year’s budget is equally misleading, as matching several years’ expenditures against a single year’s revenue would normally result in deficits for that fund. To avoid this problem, Congress, through the Byrd Amendment to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, restricted the growth of future commitments to a level not to exceed the current year’s unexpended balance plus projected income for the following two fiscal years. 1 The result does provide some protection against overspending, but it does not yield an exact figure for budgetary balance or an exact estimate of the surplus. To calculate a surplus in this situation, one has to subtract the actual obligations from the present unobligated revenues plus estimated unobligated future revenues. The number is spongy, in part because until bills are actually presented for projects approved or under way, the exact cost is not known, and in part because the calculation depends on estimates of revenues for the present and the next two years.