(Part 2) Best public affairs & food policy books according to redditors

>... should be considered?

This is a normative question. In normative questions the values of some actor(s) determines the answer.

In the case of public policy this means that all manners of people values could have an impact on the policies goals. For example, policymakers (such as legislators) all often have competing visions about what the goal of a policy should be. Bureaucrats often have their own opinions about what the goals should be. Constituents might have all sorts of other competing opinions. The target population may have other opinions. What this means is that in order for policy to pass it usually has to have a certain amount of ambiguity baked in, so as to satisfy the competing values of all the different groups/actors.

Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox is principally about the role of ambiguity in public policy and in establishing policy goals. Policy Paradox is mandatory reading for any student of Public Policy. She demonstrates how vague (ambiguous) goals are often necessary in order to achieve the votes of all the possible veto actors (committee chairs, speakers, majority leaders, median voters, Presidents, etc...). In short, many actors make it difficult to reconcile what the policy should do. And, often times not all goals can be achieved simultaneously ; Some goals are mutually exclusive to a point. This can make it difficult to determine whether a policy is actually a success or a failure.

Policy Paradox builds on some of the decision making work of Cohen, March, and Olsen who described how ambiguity of goals plays a role in decision making in "organization anarchies" such as governments and universities. Cohen and March also developed the theory of bounded-rationality and discussed the importance of ambiguity in individual decision making as well.

Implementation by Pressman and Wildavsky additionally touches how important it is that the goals of a policy have "buy in" amongst the bureaucrats responsible for implementing the policy. Essentially, if the goals are to outside the organizational culture of the bureaucracy responsible for running the program, the bureaucrats may just not implement the policy fully (or at all).

Anecdotally, I've spoken, in the course of researching legislative oversight, with policy makers who have been personally (and professionally) frustrated when they voted into creation a new policy program and appropriated money to a bureaucracy to implement that program. And then had the bureaucracy simply not implement the program in the slightest because it was simply to far afield from the goals/mission of the bureaucrats.

This is much less of a problem outside of public policy. In "Design Thinking" the only person whose values matter to the "designer" is the clients. The designer merely designs to the clients singular values. This is why "design thinking" approaches are not generally a good approach for policy analysts or policy makers.

If you're looking for a guide on how to perform a policy analysis, I suggest you read Bardach's Eightfold Path to Policy Analysis. It's essentially the standard.

The three first results when searching for "open borders" on Amazon.

Guys, I'm confused, which one should I pick?

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=open+borders&qid=1572618411&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Inc-Funding-America/dp/1621579719/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=open+borders&qid=1572618411&sr=8-2

https://www.amazon.com/Why-God-Hates-Open-Borders/dp/1732785902/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=open+borders&qid=1572618411&sr=8-3

Surprisingly it goes on like this, there is a balance between pro and anti in the following results.

>Because since they receive all these amazing perks by paying such a high tax rate, then wouldn’t it be logical to say that they could achieve perfection if they paid 100% in taxes.

That doesn't follow logic? The logic is that higher input (at a manageable % of income) + higher output (at a manageable % of GDP) = more productive society; not that 100% input = more productive society. I understand where it's possible to get confused, but it does take a bit of a leap to take it to the absolute extreme there.

It could be good for you to read Esping-Anderson's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Clasen's Comparative Social Policy and Pierson's The Welfare State Reader, if you're confused about some of the logic behind Social Democratic states.

This. I gave myself a mission statement this year, borrowed from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Class-And-Schools-Educational-Black-white/dp/0807745561

My mission is to develop in students the skills necessary to compete fairly and productively in America's democratic governance and occupational structures.

Thus, helping them stay in dress code and operate within the system definitely falls under my umbrella, and I feel better about it this year.

Do any of you you neoliberal statist shills have an opinion of my public policy textbook for next semester?

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Public-Policy-Charles-Wheelan/dp/039314982X

Samantha Power's book "A Problem From Hell" is an excellent book on American non-intervention in genocides, beginning from the Armenian Genocide.

Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure this is what you are looking for but... While taking an environmental policy course at university we were assigned Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century (9th edition) and it is by far one of my favorite books that I came across during my college days. Each chapter examines a critical natural resource issue within the US with an emphasis on public policy.

Charter schools are also a means to bring about progressive changes with regard to teaching students. A professor that I use to work with wrote a great book on it and I'm happy to have my children in a charter school that reflects those progressive ideals, impossible in a public school system.

https://www.amazon.com/Emancipatory-Promise-Charter-Schools-Progressive/dp/0791462366

It's designed to be that way;
There is a book that gets all into it by a very credible person who was one of the heads at the department of education. She exposed it years ago. The book is called "The deliberate dumbing down of America"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Thomson_Iserbyt

https://www.amazon.com/Deliberate-Dumbing-Down-America-Chronological/dp/0945019734

http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/

It's a true eye opener.

May I recommend this book. We used it in one of my MPA courses and I found it very interesting and easy to read.

The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerilla Government, 2nd Edition (Public Affairs and Policy Administration Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1452226318/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_YrUQDbR0JK5MX

http://www.amazon.com/Rooseveltcare-Social-Security-Sabotaging-Self-Reliance/dp/0979466172/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1458331455&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=rooseveltcare

I recommend "Open for Business: Conservatives' Opposition to Environmental Regulation (American and Comparative Environmental Policy)" -- MIT Press

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262526026

If you would like to study the history, reason, and tactics Conservatives use to oppose environmental regulation.

An author posted in the comments section of that horrendous article that his first book had been published and was on Amazon, entitled "Letter to a Prohibitionist", and after reading the first chapter I'm honestly recommending it to all of you. I'm going to buy both the Kindle and physical versions so I can read my own copy after giving one to my parents.

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Prohibitionist-Barry-Lyons/dp/1453799842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291396352&sr=8-1

This may seriously be the literary equivalent (or better) to The Union.

If your library has this book

https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Capitalism-Save-American-Health/dp/159403219X

The most important thing you need to realize is health care after Obamacare is now approaching 20% of GDP. How did Obamacare drive up prices so much? Both sides want to lower costs now.

Newt Gingrich has a lot of good books no matter your poltiics. This one goes into why healthcare was so expensive back when it was written and we were nowhere near 20% of GDP.

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Lives-Money-Newt-Gingrich/dp/0970548540

You can also just read about Trump's proposals like getting rid of the ban on importing drugs. Look for people discussing cost savings like that and ask why Obamacare drove the cost of healthcare to 20% of GDP when it was supposed to reduce the cost. What went wrong?

Its not my theory. Its how the financial system works.

So are you now suggesting that the private commercial banking system finances the US government with dollars? So the US government is completely reliant on banks like JP Morgan? LOL! Your logic may have applied 100 years+ ago. Unfortunately most economic textbooks still think we are on a fixed-rate exchange system.

Modern economics since Adam Smith came about during a time when the monetary system was on a gold standard. This means 90-95% of economic monetary pseudo-theory simply does not apply to our monetary system.

Economic textbooks treat the dollar as if it were a scarce commodity ie continuation of gold. This is why you can't understand what I am saying.

The government issues bonds primarily as a result of what went on during the previous 200years+. As I said a relic of the gold standard. A government bond is merely a savings account, its dollars with a term and a coupon. They decide the terms. Its basically a 'risk free asset'. The government never has to issue bonds to finance itself in a fiat-credit system. It can instruct its central bank to Credit accounts for purchases of good/services that it needs to function. As long as someone is willing to accept dollars for something, the government can pay.

The government is the largest buyer of goods/services in the economy.

Government bonds simply remove dollars created by previous deficits out of the system and replace them with dollars + coupon.

There is no such thing as a 'money supply' in our monetary system. Just entries of debts/credits on accounting ledgers. The value of the credit depends on the borrowers ability to repay the debt. ie. labor producing a good/service to satisfy the debt. Labor power backs money in our system.

The banks do not create money because when they issue loans there is a corresponding liability also created. This is different with the government.

When the government deficit spends it creates new dollars that enter the economy the same way when the private sector 'deficit spends' ie borrows money. Its the same thing, the difference is the government never has to repay back its own debt(vertical money) while the private sector has to repay debts(horizontal money).

This is the crucial difference. When the private sector deficit spends ie takes on huge loans, there is almost always a crisis around the corner because the value of the loans exceeds repayment ability primarily due to the 'magic of compound interest'. When the government deficit spends its own currency to make investments it can never be unable to repay the debt.

Here start reading:

https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Innocent-Frauds-Economic-Policy/dp/0692009590

[Rick Santorum]
(http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Santorum/dp/0976966808/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331308918&sr=1-3&tag=bookforyoudm-20)

For anyone interested this is a pretty decent introduction to some anecdotal examples of unintended consequences in socio-economic situations. - https://www.amazon.com/Unintended-Consequences-Improve-Government-Businesses/dp/0615593577

$5 for e-book

PUBLIC POLICY | Edition: 6TH 18; Author: KRAFT; ISBN: 9781506358154

https://www.amazon.com/Public-Policy-Politics-Analysis-Alternatives/dp/1506358152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527722630&sr=8-1&keywords=PUBLIC+POLICY+%7C+Edition%3A+6TH+18%3B+Author%3A+KRAFT%3B+ISBN%3A+9781506358154

Edit: smooth transaction/complete

Hey! I'm studying program development for my masters in macro social work right now and recommend the book Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough. https://www.amazon.com/Trying-Hard-Good-Enough-Anniversary/dp/1516971620

Of course you should take the results based approach with a grain of salt - not everything is about results. But it's a helpful way of thinking for grants and forming your model.