Public Policy Implementation: Insights from Kraft & Furlong

1 Book Review: Public Policy by Kraft and Furlong Chapters 7 and 8 Student Institution Course Professor Date

2 Book Review: Public Policy by Kraft and Furlong Chapters 7 and 8 Part A: Review “Public Policy: Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives” by Kraft and Furlong is an in-depth examination of the entire policy process, from agenda setting to implementation and evaluation. Chapters seven and eight of the book illustrate the complexities of the policy implementation process, two essential steps in the larger policy-making process. In Chapter 7, Kraft and Furlong focus on the policy adoption process, which involves the acceptance and implementation of economic policy within the government. The authors describe the first phase of the economic policy adoption process: agenda setting. It should be noted that agenda setting is the process of determining which problems or topics will be addressed through policy. To achieve this, policymakers utilize informal conversations or through the executive or legislative branches of the government. In the same way, the authors also discuss different levels of adoption. According to Kraft and Furlong (2017), an immediate adoption involves the policy being set into motion without any delay. However, many policies have to go through the legislative process to be adopted, meaning different levels of government will have to vote on and approve the policy before it can move forward. On the other hand, Chapter 8 provides more details concerning the healthcare policy implementation process. The chapter section focuses on processes that involve the implementation and enforcement of a policy. Ideally, appropriate policy implementation requires government agencies in the policymaking and implementation process, to note the need for government officials to be involved during the creation of the policy as well as during its implementation (Kraft & Furlong, 2017). It is after implementation that policy evaluation is done to determine whether a policy was successful or not.

3 Part B: Ways of Reducing Deficit The budget deficit impacts the financial and economic stability of our nation, and as such, the federal government must take steps to reduce it. The first method of reducing the deficit is by increasing taxes (Kane & Anson, 2022). Whereas it is not a popular option, higher taxes bring in more money for the federal government. In order to achieve this, the federal government can raise existing taxes, create new taxes, and reduce tax deductions and credits (Hitlin & Shutava, 2022). Notably, raising existing taxes is the simplest and most direct way of increasing tax revenue, but it is also the least popular. Creating new taxes and reducing deductions and credits can be effective and can reduce the overall burden of taxation on taxpayers. The second way the federal government can reduce the deficit is by reducing spending (Kraft & Furlong, 2017). In most cases, it is impractical or politically unpopular to increase taxes, so the federal government must turn to cut spending. According to Kraft and Furlong (2017), this is a difficult process as it requires making cuts to popular and important programs. Generally, the federal government must prioritize its spending and make cuts to secondary and tertiary programs while preserving core spending guidelines ( Tuxhorn et al., 2021). To do this effectively, the government often turns to outside sources and evaluates the impact of cuts on the economy in order to ensure that the cuts do not have a negative effect.

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4 References Hitlin, P., & Shutava, N. (2022). Trust in Government: A Close Look at Public Perceptions of the Federal Government and its Employees. Freedman Consulting, LLC . Kane, J.V., Anson, I.G. (2022). Deficit Attention Disorder: Partisanship, Issue Importance and Concern About Government Overspending. Polit Behav . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109- 022-09783-5 Kraft, M. E., & Furlong, S. R. (2017). Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives . CQ Press. Tuxhorn, K., D'Attoma, J., & Steinmo, S. (2021). Assessing the stability of fiscal attitudes: Evidence from a survey experiment. Public Administration , 100 (3), 633- 652. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12736

Book Review- Public Policy

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