The House of Representatives' economic stimulus bill originally contained provisions providing funding for family planning, including birth control programs, in addition to spending on infrastructure projects and tax cuts. In pairwise competition with the status quo of no stimulus bill, it is likely that this proposal, including the controversial birth control provisions, would have passed the House with majority support. However, Republicans successfully pressured the Democratic leadership to consider an alternative proposal that stripped the family planning funds from the bill. It was clear that this amended proposal was preferred to original bill by a majority of the House, and the final legislation that passed the House did not include the birth control provisions.
News coverage of these developments are here and here.
Though a formal vote was not take on the floor to amend the stimulus bill by dropping the family planning funding, the outlines of a majority cycle are clear. Indeed, we might conceptualize this as a story about majority rule in two dimensions: stimulus spending on infrastructure and spending on family planning. Imagine three voters, a liberal Democrat (who wants high stimulus spending on infrastructure and family planning), a moderate Democrat (who wants high stimulus spending on infrastructure and some moderate level of funding for family planning), and a Republican (who wants low infrastructure spending and no funding for family planning). We could easily draw our policy space with infrastructure spending on one dimension and family planning spending on the other. We could place our voters in the space based on their preferences, draw indifference curves with respect to the status quo of no stimulus, and find a winset of alternatives including one with spending for both infrastructure and family planning. Then, we could repeat the process, drawing indifference curves with respect to the first bill to defeat the staus quo and identify a winning alternative that includes no spending on family planning.
I am offering 5 points of extra credit on our first exam (2/20/2009) to all students in each of my two sections entire class if any 45 students in a respective section (about 15% of the class) turn in two diagrams showing (1) the original bill (infrasturture plus family planning) defeating the original status quo (no stimulus at all) and (2) the revised bill (only infrastructure spending) defeating the original bill.
Rules:
1. Both diagrams should include two dimensions of spending and the three voters described above along with the relevant indifference curves and win sets. Diagrams without these features or that do not show the correct sequence of events will not count toward the 45 student total.
2. Hard copies of diagrams must be turned in to me or the mailbox in my office by the start of each class this Friday (2/6/2009). Late diagrams will not count toward the total. E-mailed diagrams do not count toward the total.
3. Students who make the diagrams will not receive additional credit above the five points awarded to the class.
4. Diagrams from each section of the class count separately.
5. I am the sole judge of the acceptability of diagrams and all other aspects of the administration of this extra credit opportunity, and my decisions are final.
Good luck.
