Tanu 1

Domestic Policy
Safety net Programs consist of a wide variety of government programs which are
designed to protect minimum standards of living of families (low income families) under
unfavorable circumstances. This programs will help those who are: unemployed, poor, disable,
old age, etc. In United States, the safety nets are mainly divided into two kinds: social insurance
and means-tested. The first kind is social insurance (Medicare and Social Security) which
provides citizens with benefits based on their lifetime contributions, such as paying taxes. The
social insurance is usually run directly from the capitol, where the payroll taxes are directly
distributed in a form of benefit checks for the elderly. By contrast, the second type is meanstested which provide helps for anyone who can prove that they have a low income to qualify.
One of a good example for this program is food stamp by Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (TANF). This type of program is taken care by both state and federal government.
Nevertheless, some of these programs are entitled (entitlement program) to certain types of
people under certain conditions. Although both types of programs are designed to provide
benefits for citizen, there are certain issues exist to determine which one is worth government
spending. All of these program cost for $2.5 trillion of total federal expenditure in 2012. Social
insurance programs (Medicare and Social Security) are seen to be more successful and useful
than the mean-tested programs such as food stamp, since they made almost one-third of the
budget. But, it is not always the case. People often time prefer to be rewarded as they have
contributed by paying taxes. That is the reason why they choose social insurance rather than
mean-tested programs. However, this only works for those who can afford the contributions. The
low incomes could not contribute prefer the mean-tested programs such as food stamps.
According to Jason Deparle in his article The Safety Net; Living on Nothing but Food Stamps
shows that this program had helped many people who had no income beyond the food stamps in
2010. For example, Isabel Bermudez who lost of her properties after the recession, relied only on
the food stamps as her daily incomes to feed her children. In other hand, Representative John
Linder (Georgia Republican) considered the food stamps would not improve the economy, since
it attracted people to rely only on governments helps for living. Nevertheless although the meantested programs are seen to be less successful, they have done their justice in helping people in
need, different form the social insurance programs, which only decline the poverty rate among
the elderly, but increase the rate among children.
Work cited:
Deparle, Jason. "THE SAFETY NET; Living on Nothing but Food Stamps." New York Times. 03
Jan. 2010.
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=940DE4DD173EF930A35752C0A9669D8B63>.
Greenberg, Edward S., and Benjamin I. Page. "Safety Net Programs." The Struggle for
Democracy. 2012 Election ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2014. 575-77.

Tanu 2
Foreign Policy
Since the Soviet Union has disappeared, terrorism has become the new political challenge
for United States both internationally and domestically. The biggest terrorist attack on United
States occurred on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was
crashed by suicidal planes, controlled by the terrorist group called Al Qaeda. Since then, America
has taken many steps to response the terrorist threats in form of military operations to take down
their leaders. Certainly, United States believed in their military powers to attack the terrorists.
However, other nations prefer solid policing and intelligence operations could be more effective
in terms of defensive and offensive responses toward terrorism. However, the real argument here
are neither military nor intelligence operations approaches toward the terrorism, but rather the
clear underlining purposes to fight the terrorist. Often times U.S. leaders do not speak clearly
about who they are fighting, where they are fighting, and what the purpose of this fight. Those
three questions are often times failed to be clarified and create a misunderstanding against
particular race and religion. The 2001 terrorist attack left negative impacts on the Muslim
communities (Middle-Eastern) in stereotypical form in which misidentified all Middle-Eastern
Muslims as terrorists. This misunderstanding should have not happened if America want to
maintain a good international relationship and gain support from the citizens for its foreign
policy. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican feels that this type of issue might happened again
in the current fight against ISIS or ISLS. According to Nick Gass in his article Ted Cruz:
Obama an apologist for radical Islamic terrorist, reports that Ted Cruz complained to White
House since they did not acknowledge the 21 beheaded ISIS victims in Egypt as Christians.
Moreover, President Obama keeps stating that America is not at War with Islam, but some people
who have perverted Islam. Senator Ted Cruz suggests that President Obama should have just
acknowledged that ISIS is a group of radical Islamic terrorists who target at Christians, Jews, and
other Muslims who do not agree with them. He then continues to state claim that the ISIS have
declared war or jihad on United States, and the only solution is to go full-forces to eliminate
their leaders. Senator Cruz wants the United States to know that they are fighting with people
who are strongly embraced by religious means to justify their ends, not just a bunch of people
who perverted Muslim. By knowing the true identity, U.S. will have a better full-supported
approaches toward the terrorism.
Work Cited
Gass, Nick. "Ted Cruz: Obama 'an Apologist for Radical Islamic Terrorists'" Politico. 19 Feb.
2015. <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ted-cruz-obama-radical-islamic-terrorists115312.html>.
Greenberg, Edward S., and Benjamin I. Page. "Terrorism." The Struggle for
Democracy. 2012 Election ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2014. 616-18.