Avoid this course. Save yourself. I sacrificed myself to help you.
Worst "professor" I've had at Columbia, and there are quite a few bad ones out there. No one showed to class because he is entirely a bore, uses the slides from the book to "teach", and is half asleep for every lecture.
The TA was helpful at times, but a lot of times he would respond to your question with "I can't tell you that. That would be cheating." Meanwhile, you're just like wait...what? This is a homework assignment...I'm at your TA office hours...there's 10 other people sitting right here who don't get it either...Wait. What?
As far as the material, the course is pretty much like Microeconomics but with governmental topics like taxes, redistribution, health care, etc.