A Basic Understanding About Your Government

Government is a form of control and regulation over the way people live and interact with one another. The government has power over all of our lives.  It creates the laws we all live by, and it enforces those laws. It decides who will pay taxes and how much they will pay. And it does things that are difficult for individuals to do, like build roads and schools.

The government in the United States is a called a representative democracy.  This means that citizens over the age of 18 vote and decide who will make the rules. Politicians are the people we vote for who create rules or laws for us. The government represents us and it is our responsibility to make sure it works. This is known as politics.

In the U.S. democracy, the government is made up of three parts:

1. The Legislative Branch -- made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate (together known as the Congress) -- writes the laws that govern society.

2. The Executive Branch -- made up of the President and the Vice President -- can veto the laws Congress makes, or can sign them into law and then enforce them.

3. The Judicial Branch -- the court system, which includes the Supreme Court, the ultimate law of the land -- interprets the law according to the Constitution.

U.S. citizens vote for the President, Senate, and The House of Representatives. The President -- with the advice of the Senate -- chooses judges to sit in the court system and the Supreme Court. There are also many positions in government that are not voted on by citizens. These people are either hired (much like a regular job), or they are appointed directly by the President. People are hired or appointed because they have a special understanding of a particular issue, like crime or education. The people who work in the government form a bureaucracy. Examples include: policemen, teachers, judges, and park rangers.

The U.S. bureaucracy is made up of many organized departments. They include The Department of Agriculture, which focuses on food; The Department of Health and Human Services, which focuses on health and welfare; The Department of Education, which develops educational policies; The Department of Justice, which enforces law and order; The Department of Transportation, which takes care of our roads; and The Department of Labor, which enforces workplace and safety regulations. The biggest is the Department of Defense, which oversees our armed forces, and protects the U.S. from attack from other countries.


Money and the Government

Each year citizens pay taxes that fund the government. The President and Congress then decide how to spend those tax dollars. This is known as a budget. When a budget is agreed upon, the bureaucracy enforces it and makes it work. The budget distributes tax money to pay for programs society will benefit from, such as fixing roads, building schools, or doing medical research. In addition, tax money pays the salaries of the President and Congress. Each year they work to enact laws that protect or benefit citizens.

Money makes the government run. Groups that have a lot of money can pay to have people called lobbyists go to Washington D.C. and try and influence politicians to make laws that are in their favor. Some ways a law might be in your favor is if increases the money given to schools or your business.  

Tobacco companies lobby against any restrictions placed on smoking. They lobby against taxes placed on cigarettes. They lobby for tobacco farmers to be given money for growing tobacco. They lobby for the Department of Commerce to pay for exporting tobacco to other countries.

Tobacco companies have to obey laws that come from the government. As a result, they interact with many government departments including: The Departments of Agriculture, Justice, and Commerce. They use a lot of money to try to affect laws in all these areas.

(More information on tobacco and the government can be found in the student workbook.)

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