The system of checks and balances is the way that the U.S. government balances power between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. It is known as such because of the way that each branch is able to check the others and balance them out if one gains too much power over another.

This should have been a relatively simple question. When both the president and the majority of both chambers of congress belong to the same political party, we refer to this as “unified government.” The name, of course, makes sense, because—as they’re both of the same party—government is unified. Whenever government is unified, there’s a greater chance of increased legislation and reform (do you see why?).

This should have been a relatively simple question. Divided government is the exact opposite of unified government—not too shocking, given the name. Because both the president and either one or both chambers of Congress are of two different political parties, it becomes much more difficult to create and pass legislation, leading to gridlock.

All of the answers are correct. Congress maintains significant indirect control over the bureaucracy through all of these ways. Congress, in this fashion, generally responds reactively to the bureaucracy. In other words, if something bad happens, Congress can respond in any number of ways—eliminating the offending bureaucracy, denying funding, etc.

William Howard Taft bears the distinction of being the only man in American history to have served as both President and a Supreme Court justice. A protégé and one-time political ally of Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican Taft was elected to the White House in 1909 but left after a single term following a crushing loss to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. (This loss was helped along by Roosevelt, who ran as a third party candidate against Taft after the two men had a terrible argument and broke off their political partnership and personal friendship.) Curiously enough, however, Taft had never really desired the Presidency –a naturally quiet and even shy individual, he had instead always dreamed of serving on the Supreme Court. The former President achieved his personal goal in 1921, when he was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court justice by then-President Harding – a rise beyond Taft’s wildest imaginings. As Chief Justice, Taft served with distinction until his death in 1930.

When the national government provides a state with a categorical grant, it attaches many rules as to how the money can be spent: it comes with "strings attached." Block grants, however, can be provided with very few rules; the state decides how it will use the money. None of the other answers are true.

According to Article Two, Section Two, Clause One of the Constitution, the President is "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." However, Article One, Section Eight, Clause Eleven, specifically empowers Congress to declare war. While this has always been legally upheld, the line between "war" and a "conflict" has often been blurred, with Presidents of both parties launching military operations with no or little congressional approval.

Congress has threatened to withhold various types of funds in order to gain leverage in legal areas granted to states under the Tenth Amendment. One famous case was held up by the Supreme Court: the Reagan administration threatened to withhold ten percent of highway funds until states changed their legal drinking age to 21. This is part of a long history of power struggles between states and the federal government. Students should be familiar with the most notable cases of these power struggles throughout American history, and in that way be familiar with Federalism (including Dual Federalism and Cooperative Federalism).

Article IV (4) of the United States Constitution is concerned with addressing the relationship between the states, as well as between the states and the Federal government.

This is should be a fairly simply question, as long as you remember the difference between inter and intra: inter means “between” and intra means “within.” Thus, interstate commerce refers to business in between the states, while intrastate commerce refers to business solely within the state. The former falls under the powers of the federal government and the latter belongs to the states (this has been . . . tweaked . . . slightly by the Supreme Court and the “dormant commerce clause” but that is far beyond the scope of your course).

All of the other powers belong to the federal government, for somewhat obvious reasons: you don’t want individual states attempting to represent the US as a whole to foreign countries—that would be horribly disjointed; in order to have uniform bankruptcy laws, those laws cannot be formed in each individual state (again, oversimplified); to maintain a nation-wide defense, there has to be nationwide oversight.