Name _________________

Your Political Philosophy

	Strongly Agree (5 pts.)	Agree (4 pts.)	No opinion (3 pts.)	Disagree (2 pts.)	Strongly Disagree (1 pt.)	Odd num-bers	Even num-bers
1. Tobacco companies should pay out large sums of money to state governments to compensate for the money that is spent on health care for people who have gotten sick from smoking.
2. The federal government should decrease its role in education and send that money back to the states to spend on education as they see best.
3. The government should require the registration of handguns and a background check before people can buy a gun.
4. The death penalty is an appropriate response to terrible crimes and should be maintained.
5. Many criminals resort to crime because they have socially and economically deprived backgrounds and the government can best fight crime by addressing these root causes of crime.
6. Introducing competition into education by giving poor families vouchers so that they can send their children to the school of their choice even if they choose a private school (including religious schools) is a good way to improve education.
7. The best way to improve our political system is to reform campaign finance laws so people and companies cannot give so much money to political parties and cannot advertise their political messages on their.
8. A politician's private behavior is an important consideration in judging whether he or she is a good leader.
9. We need federal programs to help minorities get into college and to get jobs so that they can overcome past discrimination.
10. We should reform our tax code so that we have a flat tax whereby everyone pays the same percentage of their income in order to simplify the tax laws.
11. The government should raise taxes in order to pay for new programs because there are certain things like helping the poor and the sick that are too important to ignore.
12. Reducing regulations on business would allow businesses to operate more efficiently.
13. We should have more federal regulations to help the environment.
14. We should not add any new programs unless we cut the budget somewhere else in order to compensate for the new programs.
15. It is important for the federal government to fund the arts and public television.
16. We should reform the social security system so that instead of paying all the taxes to the government, people could invest some of that money in the stock market to save for their retirement.

	Strongly Agree (5 pts.)	Agree (4 pts.)	No opinion (3 pts.)	Disagree (2 pts.)	Strongly Disagree (1 pt.)	Odd num-bers	Even num-bers
17. The federal government should pass laws to make sure that everyone has health insurance. If people can't afford their own health insurance, the government should pay for it.
18. We should spend money on developing a missile defense system to protect us if a country fired a missile at us.
19. We should cut federal spending on the military in order to save money.
20. We need to spend more money on defense to keep the United States' predominant position in the world.
21. We should have a nuclear freeze whereby our government does not do any research or testing on nuclear weapons.
22. The U. S. should have free trade with as many countries as possible and not tax imports from foreign countries.
23. Abortion should always be kept legal without any restrictions.
24. The country's overall level of morality would be improved if we allowed a moment of silence in school that students could use for reflection or prayer.
TOTAL	X	X	X	X	X

1. Give yourself the correct number of points for each position you took and put that number in the appropriate column for odd-numbered and even-numbered statements.

2. Then total each column.

3. Subtract the smaller number from the larger number.

4. The teacher will tell you which column corresponds to which political philosophy. The number that you got in step three will tell you how strongly you match that philosophy. The highest number that you could get is 48 points.

Return to Assignment Page