public finance

The Ohio State University

Economics 4300, Government Finance in the American Economy

William J. White

Autumn, 2018

Third Homework Assignment

In the spirit of keeping our government officials accountable by increasing our supervisory efforts, I would like you to learn a little more about a government agency. Specifically, I would like you to uncover its authorized activities, expected budget (from both executive and legislative branches), and appropriated spending.

Rather than extracting your information from the usual third-party sources (Wikipedia, Facebook news, Huffington Post, or RealClearPolitics for example), I would like you to go to the sources and uncover information from the web sites of the relevant branches of government. As we discussed in class, a good starting point is Congress.gov – the successor to Thomas.gov, which is one-stop shopping for all things legislative. You will also want to check out the Office of Management & Budget at whitehouse.gov/omb. I might also recommend you go to the website of the agency involved, which is likely to have a great deal of useful information about the agency's mission and objectives.

Once you have gathered this information, please create a 3-4 page summary of the agency's current and projected status, based on budgets, authorizations, and appropriations. You may wish to comment on the likelihood that the agency can accomplish its objectives with the funds allotted. Although organization and presentation will be a part of the grade for this assignment, don't feel that you have to create a work of literature to succeed.

This homework is due by 12:45 on Tuesday, October 9th. For this third assignment, I would like to receive it as a Carmen upload in Word (.doc or .docx) or pdf format. Good luck!