Given what is going on around us, a great topic would be to talk about what is happening to the U.S. economy as a result of the current Corona Virus and efforts to address it. What is going to happen to the U.S. economy as a result? Was the economic bill that was passed a good idea? Will it work? Should more be done? What?
Most important in evaluating your paper will be to demonstrate how these various policies work and interact, and how the linkages operate in the economy. I’m really not interested in your political views, and they should not be central to the paper. It’s an economic argument. But if you come off as liberal or conservative, that does not concern me and will not affect your grade. Oh, and to simplify you may ignore international effects.
Short/brief is good. You’ll find getting this down to 3-5 pages more difficult than just writing long. But the painful truth is that editors are more likely to publish you if you are brief and to the point. They like ideas and not just “I just like higher/lower taxes” or “my life is tough.” They want “Maine has a net outflow of working age population of 2% per year, and a reduction of the state income tax to 5% would reverse this trend, leading to substantial migration of firms to Maine over the next 5 years.” (I just made that whole thing up. You shouldn’t make stuff up!)
This should be a relatively fun assignment and gives you an opportunity to use some of what you have learned. As we move forward over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be covering a lot of material that should be useful to you in doing this assignment.