Question 1
The subject matter of electoral systems is the main component that anyone interested in democracy and governance should focus on. For any democratic and representative democracy country, elections play a very critical role in determining those who are going to rule. In essence, elections execute two essential tasks: one is to grant authority to those elected to represent the electorate and also to hold legislators accountable for their actions while in power (O'neil, 2015). Achieving the two goals ultimately relies on the electoral systems which are in place. An electoral system is defined as formal structure and means of an election process. In most developed countries, two systems of elections are common, single member district and proportional representation (O'neil, 2015). The two differ significantly with each having its pros and cons outlined as follows.
A single member district whose acronym is SMD is a form of the legislative election system in the United States where only one representative is elected to represent the entire electoral district, commonly referred to as constituencies in the legislature. The congress districts in U.S are SMD, where the winner takes it all. This means that during an election period the electorate votes for representatives of their choice, the one who garners most votes (plurality votes) becomes the winner and takes office. Basically to become a winner for an election in this form of the electoral system one needs to get most votes and not necessarily the majority of the votes. On the other hand, proportional representation refers to an electoral system in which the percentage of the votes a party gets in an election directly represents the number of legislative seats that party will get. For example, if a party gets 50% of the total votes cast then it shall definitely get 50% of parliamentary seats. Unlike in SMD where a single winner is voted in, for proportional representation, all voters have a say in the end results since parties are the one voted for.
Conclusively, proportional representation is more democratic than single member district. I would, therefore, prefer proportional representation electoral system because it guarantees equal political representation to all citizens/voters and small parties. For proportional representation, even if the party doesn’t win in an election, it will still get representatives in the legislature.
Question 2
Social expenditure in the United States is budgets set aside to fund various social programs which help Americans. Such programs include food assistance, health care subsidies, education, cash assistance and childcare assistance among other basic services subsidies. Expenditures on social programs have been rising steadily in past few years, especially on health care programs and social security. This rise is largely attributed to the increasing aging population. Life expectancy has increased significantly due to improved healthcare. An aging population normally affects a country’s economy adversely. This is because there will be a small working population which pays tax while the aging population comprises of retirees who no longer pay tax. This creates an imbalance in the economy as there will be limited funds to gather for social programs.
There are generally three probable ways of addressing the social expenditures problem, these are: raising taxes, reducing benefits and lastly increasing immigration. Picking any of the three solutions will have other negative impacts on the economy. Therefore, a solution that will yield more benefits than negatives should be chosen. The most viable solution to the problem of social expenditure, in my opinion, is increasing immigrations. Raising taxes paid by the working population will increase revenue needed by the federal government to finance its social programs. However, the problem with this action is that it will impact negatively on the taxpayers. When working population pay more taxes, they will tend to cut on their expenditure on basic needs hence affecting the economy by slowing the economic growth. This measure is therefore not the best solution to social expenditure problem.
Another alternative is reducing social benefits; this, however, will have more harmful impacts. For example reducing budgetary allocations for healthcare and education will affect their quality. A large number of citizens depend on subsidized healthcare services provided by Medicare and Medicaid. Thus, reducing funding to this social program, it means limiting people access to quality and affordable healthcare. Similarly reducing funding to education will have long-term effects on the U.S economy since a less educated population will not meet the needs of job market which requires creative and innovative workers.
The only way out to addressing social expenditure for an increasing aging population is to increase immigration. Immigration will have a positive impact on the economy of the United States as more people will be available to work. An increase in a working population translates to increase in taxes; hence, there will be more available funds for the federal government to gather for budgetary allocations for its social programs. Moreover, immigration will bring people from other parts of the world who possess knowledge and skills in various fields. Increasing immigrations will also reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the United States.
References
O'neil, P. H. (2015). Essentials of Comparative Politics: Fifth International Student Edition. WW Norton & Company.
