Teaching Ideas for Chapter 14:
The Congress, the President, and the Budget: The Politics of Taxing and Spending

• Tax expenditures are essentially monies that government could collect but does not because they are exempted from taxation. The Office of Management and Budget estimated that the total tax expenditures in 1993 would be about $400 billion--a third of the total federal receipts. If this estimate is correct, the government could close its budget deficit by taxing things it does not currently tax, such as Social Security benefits, pension fund contributions, and charitable contributions. Ask your class to vote on whether such taxes should be adopted. Ask them to analyze political and social implications of the positions they take.

• Direct your students' attention to the boxed feature on The People Speak: Taxes and Equity, which shows the result of a poll that asked if the present income tax system is fair. Have them contrast the findings with data in America in Perspective: How Much Is Too Much?, which shows that the national, state, and local governments in the United States tax a smaller percentage of the resources of the country than do those in almost all other democracies with developed economies. Do your students perceive any paradox or contradiction in logic between these two features? How do your students evaluate the results?