AP US Government / Economics Assignments
- Instructor
- Mr. Edgar Hermosillo
- Term
- Spring 2020
- Department
- History Department
Upcoming Assignments
No upcoming assignments.
Past Assignments
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- Traditional face-to-face exam administrations will not take place.
- Some students may want to take the exam sooner rather than later, while the content is still fresh. Other students may want more time to practice. For each AP subject, there will be 2 different testing dates.
The full exam schedule, specific free-response question types that will be on each AP Exam, and additional testing details will be available by April 3. We'll also unlock any relevant free-response questions in AP Classroom for digital use so students can access all practice questions of the type that will appear on the exam. NO TEST DATE HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED YET.
The exam will be modified to cover only the following units: Foundations of American Democracy, Interactions Among Branches of Government, and Civil Liberties/Rights.
NOT TESTED: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs unit, and the Political Participation unit.
Instructional Support
Beginning on Wednesday, March 25, students and teachers can attend free, live AP review courses, delivered by AP teachers from across the country. These mobile-friendly classes are:
- Designed to be used alongside work that may be given by schools.
- Will be recorded and available on-demand so teachers and students can access them any time.
- Not dependent on current AP teachers continuing instruction. We know many AP teachers now face challenges that would make that impossible.
- Will focus on reviewing the skills and concepts from the first 75% of the course. There will also be some supplementary lessons covering the final 25% of the course.
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1. Some argue that – without some pressure from the President via a line-item veto – Congress will never independently reduce pork barrel spending. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement. Is the line-item veto the only effective way to address pork barrel spending? Can you think of other ones that can perhaps be viewed as less disruptive of the balance of powers between the executive and the legislative branches?
2. Would the line-item veto proposed by George W. Bush be ruled unconstitutional if enacted by law, as did the law passed by the Republican Congress under Bill Clinton? Would it greatly upset the balance of power between Congress and the President? Explain your reasoning.
3. Some argue that, as a “living” document, the Constitution should be interpreted, reinterpreted, and stretched to meet the demands of the day. For instance, the framers of the Constitution may not have envisioned pork barrel spending and might have agreed – if alive today – that the line-item veto as proposed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama would be a legitimate “tweak.” Do you agree with this vision of the Constitution, or do you believe that Americans should respect the original document and refrain from “tweaking” unless via the amendment process established in it? Explain.
4. In the last several decades, Congress has often seemed comfortable deferring to the President on military issues. Some argue that the line-item veto would do the same in the arena of legislation. Do you agree with this characterization? Should the President have more military power than Congress? Should the President have more power than he already has in the legislative process? Why or why not?
5. Supporters of the line-item veto suggest that it would decrease federal spending, while critics of the plan insist that it would actually increase spending. 1) Who has the better argument? Explain. 2) Are earmarks a significant enough burden on the federal budget to warrant granting the President a line-item veto?