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The paper examines three forms of budgetary rule applied to the food stamp program — discretion, entitlement, and expenditure caps. The different budget rules are modeled with respect to their reversion point, the outcome that prevails by default if no cooperative agreement is reached. Hypotheses concerning budgetary politics and policy are derived from the models and tested using historical data from one arena over time. The case study is relevant to the broader problem of welfare spending. The dilemma is how to reconcile budget protection needed for the impoverished against the fragmentation and fluctuations of routine political conflict, and budget integration needed for democratic deliberation regarding the multiple tasks of government. Entitlement status insures program benefits for qualifying households, but it also carves off a portion of total outlays declared to be relatively uncontrollable, outside of the annual mechanisms of review and adjustment. Discretionary budgeting, by contrast, incorporates welfare within ordinary collective decision-making that establishes priorities across competing claimants for public funds, but it also risks making the poor in society victims of their own vulnerability. Expenditure caps have recently been proposed as a solution to the dilemma, allowing outlays to grow automatically up to a given threshold but requiring conscious choice if they threaten to breach the threshold. Caps are celebrated by proponents as an instrument fostering enhanced managerial oversight and reasonable expenditure control. This study of the food stamp program, however, reveals that caps are more likely to engender procedural complexities and substantive policy bias. Moreover, these are logical and foreseeable results, easily deduced from the models of budgetary rule.

Examines three forms of budgetary rule applied to the US food stamp program: discretion, entitlement, & expenditure caps. The different budget rules are modeled with respect to their reversion point, the outcome that prevails by default if no cooperative agreement is reached. Hypotheses concerning budgetary politics & policy are derived from the models & tested using historical data from one arena over time. The dilemma is how to reconcile budget protection needed for the impoverished against the fragmentation & fluctuations of routine political conflict & budget integration needed for democratic deliberation regarding the multiple tasks of government. Expenditure caps have recently been proposed as a solution to the dilemma, allowing outlays to grow automatically up to a given threshold but requiring conscious choice if they threaten to breach the threshold. Caps are celebrated by proponents as an instrument fostering enhanced managerial oversight & reasonable expenditure control. It is argued here, however, that caps in the food stamp program are more likely to engender procedural complexities & substantive policy bias. Moreover, these are logical & foreseeable results, easily deduced from the models of budgetary rule. 2 Figures, 1 Appendix, 19 References. Adapted from the source document.

An exploration of how & why the US federal government has used funding denial to the states -- often in oblique ways -- as a means of implementing public policy. Case studies of the 55-mile per hour speed limit, 21-year old minimum drinking age, draft registration, & affirmative action/desegregation policies are presented, & some reasons why the government attempted to enforce them through threatening to withold monies for tangentially related benefits, eg, highway aid, educational assistance, & federal grants/contracts, are examined. It is shown that each of these social concerns involved strong moral issues, & normal judicial means of effecting their implementation were judged insufficient. The legitimacy of oblique funding denial as a political device is debated, & related to tensions inherent in the US ideology that upholds constitutional federalism & individual rights. K. Hyatt

DESPITE MOUNTING WAR COSTS AND INTENSIFYING INFLATIONARY TRENDS, AND CONTRARY TO THE COUNSEL OF HIS ECONOMIC ADVISERS, LYNDON JOHNSON DID NO SEEK A COUNTERCYCLICAL TAX INCREASE IN 1966. USING UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS FROM THE JOHNSON ARCHIVES, PROFESSOR KING REPRODUCES HERE THE SEQUENCE OF RECOMMENDATIONS AND DECISIONS TO SHOW WHY THE FISCAL POLICIES ADOPTED DURING THAT YEAR LOOKED PLAUSIBLE TO THE PRESIDENT. HE ARGUES THAT THE POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS IN WHICH KEYNESIAN CHOICES MUST BE MADE TEND TO INHIBIT STRONG DEFLATIONARY ACTION UNDER CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY AND RISK.