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Long the lifeblood of public administration, budgeting in the United States acquired a new importance during the 1980s and 1990s because of the fiscalization of the policy debate. But how much has American national budgeting really changed? This article examines the evolution of federal budgeting over the past half‐century, exploring such developments as the massive growth of entitlements, congressional budget reform, and the protracted battle over the budget deficit. It finds that year‐to‐year changes in budget results have been relatively small even while budgetary rules and procedures have experienced sweeping change. At the same time, the composition of federal spending has undergone a quiet revolution. The traditional concept of budgetary incrementalism offers an incomplete explanation for these dynamics. To make sense of them, the article focuses on two key factors: the impact of policy inheritances, and the role of actors' causal and normative beliefs. These factors shape the ideational and material context within which boundedly rational actors negotiate decisions. The tension between changes in ideas and entrenched budgetary commitments has often served to stimulate institutional reform.

Examines evolution of federal budgeting in the past 50 years; focuses on budget practices and processes, procedural rules, norms, and organizational roles; US.

Argues that threats to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds come from changing political priorities, rather than from financial deficits; analyzes the role of trust funds in creating political credibility; US.

"This handbook serves as a guide to concepts and methods applied in the analysis of policy. Eugene Bardach developed the general approach and many of the specific suggestions over thirty-five years of teaching policy analysis workshops to first- and second-year graduate students at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. In the handbook's earliest incarnation, the ideas took form slowly and were conveyed to students in lectures. But because Bardach and his faculty colleagues systematically overloaded their students with work, the students would sometimes skip a lecture-and thus miss out on ideas that he regarded as essential. Bardach determined that if he were to create a handout for the students, at least he would be discharging his responsibility, and it would be up to the students to retrieve the ideas they missed. Over the years, as the handout grew, it was disseminated informally to colleagues at other universities and was posted on the website of the Electronic Hallway, based at the University of Washington. This book is the outgrowth of these previous compilations and the product of many years of experience. Eric M. Patashnik was first exposed to the Eightfold Path when he took the Introductory Policy Analysis course as a student at the Goldman School in the spring of 1988. As a professor, he has assigned earlier editions of Gene's book to hundreds of public policy students at UCLA, the University of Virginia, and Brown University. The presumed user is a beginning practitioner preparing to undertake a policy analysis, such as one of our master's students at Berkeley or Brown. But we have found this handbook useful at both ends of the spectrum-in teaching undergraduate Introduction to Public Policy courses as well as executive education groups. The handbook assumes a familiarity with basic economic concepts, including those having to do with market failures (including market imperfections). It is not meant to stand alone but should be used in conjunction with other sources, including some of the best textbooks in policy analysis, which are cited often to amplify points in this handbook: Behn and Vaupel (1982); Friedman (2002); MacRae and Whittington (1997); Morgan and Henrion (1990); Stokey and Zeckhauser (1978); and Weimer and Vining (2017). A book similar in spirit to this one, and that has many examples drawn from New Zealand and Australia, is Scott and Baehler (2010)"--

"Congress is frequently said to be "broken," "dysfunctional," and "weak," but how does the contemporary Congress really work? Does Congress still have the capacity to solve major policy problems? Can it check an aggrandizing executive, oversee a powerful Federal Reserve, and represent the American people? Can Congress cope with vast changes in the American political economy, including rising income inequality and wage stagnation? Congress and Public Policy in the 21st Century takes a fresh look at the performance of Congress in the domestic arena, focusing on issues such as immigration, health care, and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." With original contributions from leading scholars, this important volume examines how Congress tackles - and fails to tackle - key policy challenges in an era of growing social diversity and ideological dissensus over the role of activist government. Rich in analysis and illuminating detail, the book reveals the full complexity of the institution at work"..

Politics is at its most dramatic during debates over important pieces of legislation. It is thus no stretch to refer to legislation as a living, breathing force in American politics. And while debates over legislative measures begin before an item is enacted, they also endure long afterward, when the political legacy of a law becomes clear. Living Legislation provides fresh insights into contemporary American politics and public policy. Of particular interest to the contributors to this volume is the question of why some laws stand the test of time while others are eliminated, replaced.

Introduction / Eric M. Patashnik andWendy J. Schiller -- The rise of tribal politics in historical perspective / James A. Morone -- Incremental liberalism or prolonged partisan warfare / Matt Grossman -- Legislative stalemate in postwar America, 1947-2018 / Sarah A. Binder -- Challenges of measuring party unity in a polarized era : th 115th Congress / Frances E. Lee -- Polarization and the changing constitutional system : the case of federalism / Nolan McCarty -- She's not my governor : negative partisanship and trust in government in the American states / Kristin Kanthak -- Gender attitudes and American public opinion in the Trump era / John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck -- Curating the news : how social media facilitates selective exposure / Samara Klar and Yotam Shmargad -- Charge and retreat : asymmetric patterns of political engagement among liberals and conservatives / Deborah J. Schildkraut, Jeffrey M. Berry, and James M. Glaser -- Politics industry theory / Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter -- Spoiler alert : why Americans' desires for a third party are unlikely to come true / Lee Drutman, William A. Galston, and Tod Lindberg -- Our "undivided support" : Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and executive-centered partisanship / Nicholas F. Jacobs and Sidney M. Milkis -- Conclusion : reflections and paths forward / Eric M. Patashnik and Wendy J. Schiller.

Policies usually have to be sustained for a substantial period of time to have their intended impact, but they may face a number of important political challenges after enactment that can result in their repeal or erosion. These challenges follow recurrent patterns and frequently can be predicted in advance, at least in their broad parameters. Policy analysts should, therefore, consider political sustainability as an important criterion in designing policies and evaluating policy alternatives. Drawing on research on the ways that policies create self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining feedbacks, this article provides a "checklist" of potential sources, risk factors, and warning signs for potential challenges to political sustainability. It also identifies and discusses a set of strategies that both program defenders and challengers can use to achieve their objectives. The article applies this analysis to the case of the Affordable Care Act.

President Barack Obama's two signature first-term legislative victories—the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act—are the law of the land, but the political battle over their entrenchment continues. The question now is whether these landmark reforms will be consolidated and create a new politics going forward. We develop an argument about the limits of policy feedback to illuminate the obstacles to durable liberal reform in the contemporary American state. We argue that political scientists have paid insufficient attention to the fragility of inherited policy commitments, and that the capacity of reforms to remake politics is contingent, conditional, and contested. Feedbacks are shaped not only by the internal attributes of policies, but also by the interaction between policy-specific characteristics, the strategic goals of officeholders and clientele groups, and the political forces arising from a contentious and uncertain political environment.