MID
DTERM ESSAY
E
EXAM:
E
“T
The State of the ((Domestiic) Union
n”
America’s
A
s Future ((IA463)
Hard copy
co due on
o Friday, January
J
144th by 4:00p
0pm in my office (Mo
Moench A2009).
NMENT: A strange conffluence of evvents has thruust YOU intoo the Presideency. Everytthing
ASSIGN
else rem
mains the sam
me. The Republicans conntrol the Houuse, the Dem
mocrats contrrol the Senatee, and
all of the legislation passed under (now formerr) President O
Obama still sstands. So yo
ou are addressing
the actuall political situuation as it exxists in America right now
w. The only difference iss that you aree
presidentt. You can make yourself a Democrat or a Republiican, liberal oor conservatiive. You can seek
to continue the directtion of Presid
dent Obama or steer the ccountry on a different co
ourse. You caan do
whatever you wish -- but you’ve got
g to convince the Ameri
rican people tto follow youu. Here is your
big chancce. It is Januaary so it is tim
me for the State of the Unnion Addresss. Your assig
ignment for this
essay is to
t write thee domestic policy
p
portioon of the speeech.
This assiggnment givess you a great deal of flexib
bility and pottential for crreativity. It is also incumb
bent
upon youu, however, to
o show that you
y have beeen paying atttention by esttablishing yo
our policy
credentialls. Thus you need to focuus on what yo
ou think are the key dom
mestic policy
cy challengees for
the US at
a present, why
w they aree significant,
t, and how yyou think th
hey should b
best be
addresseed. You are not limited to
t the topics that we havee discussed inn class nor do you need tto
cover eveery topic disccussed to date. You do, however, needd to cover at least threee1key issues in
some deetail (explainiing the naturre of the probblem; its impportance; andd your proposed plan for
addressin
ng it). Keep in
n mind the assembled meembers of Coongress as w
well as the pub
blic at large n
need
to be con
nvinced of th
he soundness of your anallysis and the benefit of yoour proposedd policies. Th
his
requires logic,
l
persuassion, and thee appropriate marshaling oof empirical evidence.
FORMA
AT: This is a speech and should
s
be wrritten as suchh. (You mighht want to loo
ok at some olld
State of th
he Union Ad
ddresses to garner
g
the pro
oper voice.) B
Begin your sppeech with: ““Speaker
Boehner, Vice Presideent ______2, members off Congress, ddistinguishedd guests, and fellow
American
ns…” You do
o not need a conclusion as
a you are onnly writing thhe first half o
of the speech
h. You
can end by
b saying: “W
We also face numerous
n
ch
hallenges arouund the worlld…” Your sspeech should be
at least fivve typed, douuble-spaced pages
p
long (n
normal marggins and fonts). Remembeer that if youu
drone on too long thee TV audiencce will start flipping
fl
over to The Foodd Network (C
Chopped
Marathon
n!!!)
1
REMEMBER: You don
n’t get any speccial credit for doing
d
the minim
mum!
2
You’re thee Commander-in
n-Chief now; you
u get to pick the Vice President.