Federal Budget Speech
“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
– Thomas Jefferson
The federal budget spends close to four trillion dollars a year and is split between mandatory spending (what the federal government has to spend due to congressional legislation) and discretionary spending (what the federal government spends as a result of congressional allotment). Roughly speaking, mandatory spending accounts for two-thirds of the federal budget and discretionary spending accounts for one-third of the federal budget.
Every year the executive and legislative branches debate budgetary priorities for the federal bureaucracies such as the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the Environmental Protection Agency, Veteran Affairs, the Department of Education, and others. Many of these debates occur within congressional committee meetings as members of Congress, federal employees, outside interests, and individual citizens articulate funding requests.
For this assessment you will compose a speech advocating why your chosen department, administration, or agency within the federal bureaucracy should receive additional funding.
Because the “world is a stage,” let us establish the setting, plot, and the ensuing action for your speech.
Setting:
Exterior: Washington D.C. State Capitol Building.
Interior: Room 221B. Congressional Hearing Room.
Plot:
Imagine that you are in a cavernous room. You sit before a large table facing twenty one senators from the Budget Committee. Photographers, more than you can imagine, squeeze between the space that separates you from the members of Congress. Behind you in the gallery, public policy wonks and regular citizens sit, awaiting your presentation.
You are a featured speaker from a citizen group that advocates a particular public policy funding concern for your federal department, administration, or agency. Prior to the meeting you have already read the president’s proposed federal budget for the upcoming year from the Office of Management and Budget and you have some budgetary concerns. You read in alarm how the upcoming federal budget request from the White House reduces funding for your federal department, administration, or agency. But, as you know, it is up to Congress to fund the executive bureaucracy. The executive branch requests funding and the legislative branch allocates funding. This is your chance to request more funding for your federal department, administration, or agency of choice.
Action:
Equally eager and nervous you stand in front of a lectern. “Now,” you think, “now I am ready…” You click on the microphone, examine your prepared speech about your funding request, and you begin to speak with eloquence and passion!
Directions: Compose a 400 word transcript of your public policy speech.
- Select a specific example of public policy from one of the following fields:
- Economic policy – for example, U.S. budget deficit spending.
- Education policy – for example, the establishment of national education standards.
- Environmental policy – for example, the Clean Air Act.
- Foreign policy – for example, the interplay between civil liberties and the Patriot Act.
- Healthcare policy – for example, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
- Welfare policy – for example, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
- Select a department, administration, or agency within the Federal Bureaucracy that addresses your public policy concern.
- Write a brief, persuasive speech advocating for increased funding for the federal department, administration, or agency due to its active involvement with your public policy issue.
- A persuasive speech is a type of speech when the speaker seeks to convince an audience based on a spoken argument. Persuasive speeches are composed of three components: an appeal to logic, an appeal to emotion, and an appeal to credibility.
- An appeal to logic is when you persuade an audience with reason. (Learning, n.d.)
- Example: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” – Abraham Lincoln
- An appeal to emotion is when you elicit an emotional response from the audience. (Learning, n.d.)
- Example: “Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
- An appeal to credibility is when the speaker’s status or authority on the subject persuades the audience. (Learning, n.d.)
- Example: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” – Lloyd Bentsen
- The National Constitution Center compiled the ten greatest speeches in U.S. history. From Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech to Ronald Reagan’s Tear Down This Wall speech, great oration significantly affects public policy (NCC, 2017). Included on this list is Martin Luther King, Jr’s I have a Dream Speech. Newsweek, an American news magazine, has the video of the speech and The New York Times has an excellent analysis of the speech.
- Within the speech please include the following:
- State the public policy concern.
- Include either a logical, emotional, and/or credibility appeal.
- Explain the current finances of your federal department, administration, or agency.
- Describe how the federal department, administration, or agency can positively affect the public policy concern with increased funding.
- Support your analysis with information from the text and at least two additional academic source.
Your assignment should also meet the following requirements:
- APA format.
- Title page.
- Reference page.
- APA citations.
- Double spaced sentences.
- 12-point Times New Roman font.
- Standard English grammar conventions.
- Correct grammar.
- Correct punctuation and spelling.
- Logical, well ordered sentences.
