The "New Normal" U.S. Economy

The "new normal," as it has come to be called on Wall Street, academia and even CNBC, envisions an economy in which growth is too slow to bring down the unemployment rate, while the government is forced to intervene ever more forcefully in a struggling private sector.

If that sounds like the last three years, it should. Many economic and financial experts have coined that phrase and think the new normal has already begun and will last at least another three to five years.

The new normal challenges the economic theories and optimism that's been at the root of American success for decades, if not centuries. And if it is here, the new normal could force Democrats and Republicans to rethink their traditional approach to unemployment and other economic problems. These approaches include more government involvement in the economy that focus on the budget, taxes, and fiscal and monetary policy.

Many economic experts, and even some conservatives, see a greater role for government to invest in retraining unemployed workers with a new set of skills for the jobs of the future rather than the past. They also see that it may be also time for the government to invest tens of billions on new infrastructure projects to put people to work. This would create the incomes that would result in increased consumer demand that would stimulate the private sector to expand hiring and put more people back to work. As economic activity increases, federal, state, and local revenues increase, spending on welfare, unemployment, health care decrease, leading to reducing deficits at all levels.

ProQuest has created a CourseCart learning activity, powered by your eLibrary subscription, to help your students learn more about the federal budget—"Financing Government—Taxes and Budgets."

This is one of 22 CourseCart learning activities that librarians and/or teachers can copy to their local collections. CourseCarts are collections of BookCart learning activities that address the major topics and issues of popular courses and textbooks—in this instance, U.S. Government & Civics (Excel XLS listing.)

CourseCarts save time and provide teachers with the flexibility to make inquiry-based learning activities at a variety of points in a course when it's appropriate.

Each Cart provides:

• Examples of essential questions that help students develop 21st Century critical thinking skills
• Student directions that guide the research process
• An option for call numbers to related print resources
• Optional quiz or assessment
• 21st Century literacy learning standard (search by standards information)
• ProQuest models for written reports and presentations

You won't find this combination of inquiry-based learning activity support in one place in any other online teaching and learning subscription.

Teachers and/or librarians can copy any or all the CourseCarts for U.S. Government & Civics by using the new listing that includes hyperlinked titles.

First, login to the eLibrary Teacher Edition. Next, view our list of CourseCarts (Excel XLS). Finally, click the hyperlinked title to review and copy the free lesson plans of interest, all powered by ProQuest.

• Open the eLibrary TEACHER EDITION @ http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/teacher.
• Click BOOKCART ADMIN link at the top.
• Click the PROQUEST CARTS tab (800 ProQuest models).
• Click the FOLDER "US Government & Civics CourseCarts."
• Scroll the Carts list to find this CourseCart.
• Click the COPY icon in the ACTIONS column to the right of the title.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS tab to end the copying process.

Librarians or teachers can edit this BookCart to customize it for their students. To edit this BookCart:

• Click the new BookCart TITLE with the prefix "COPY OF".
• Delete "Copy of" and then type your name in the AUTHOR boxes and your initials in the EMAIL box (required filler info).
• Option: Edit any ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS for your students in the DESCRIPTION box.
• Option: Edit the existing STUDENT DIRECTIONS in the Description box.
• Scroll down and click SAVE.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS and view your new student learning activity.

The good news is that any and all of the other 800+ ProQuest model BookCart learning activities can also be copied using our new hyperlinked list by curriculum area (PDF).

Assign students a report of at least 150 words or a presentation of at least seven slides on the role of the federal budget and taxes in helping to manage economic activity in the U.S.

Students should cite at least three resources and address the following essential questions for critical thinking (you can substitute or add others):

• What are the major sources of tax revenue used by the federal government?
• Why is a budget deficit not always necessarily bad for the economy?
• Why is a tax increase not necessarily bad for the economy?
• What is an example of a tax that would be fairer than the income tax and why?
• What budget items would you increase and decrease if you were Congress and why?

Type "Federal Budget and Taxation" in the Search box > Sort Results list by DATE

Your students can use our custom ProQuest models for written and PowerPoint-style reports.

Teachers may be interested in a ProQuest flexible rubrics model (PDF) for evaluating inquiry-based learning activities.

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