ABSTRACT
Politics always involves setting priorities and making choices. Political leaders and governmental officials are constantly faced with questions about where to allocate scarce public resources. Public policy formation and implementation is a mad scramble, as departments and agencies of government are pitted against each other and inevitably meet head on as they make their case for funding. Although paying taxes and dealing with the Internal Revenue Service stimulates a rush of emotions and passions in the American public, the tax code and the tax collection system are a necessary part of what political scientists call extractive policy. Enormous military budgets were approved with nary a hint of criticism, newfangled weapons systems appeared regularly, and the armed forces were held up as the premier institution in American society. White Americans, in particular white male Americans, criticized the program as denying them job and career opportunities while showing preference to African Americans and females.
