Suchergebnisse

Parties, Rules, and the Evolution of Congressional Budgeting traces how Congressional macrobudgeting has fundamentally changed the way in which Congress frames and enacts budget choices. Included in the analysis are the 1974 Budget Act, the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings mandatory deficit reduction plan of 1985, the Bush and Clinton deficit reduction packages in 1990 and 1993, the balanced budget agreement in 1997, and the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Analyzing the transition from a fragmented to a more centralized process reveals that macrobudgeting has restructured congressional rules and institutions, changed the way congress legislates, enhanced congressional capacity, and altered how Congress negotiates with the president. Lance T. LeLoup finds that rule changes and new institutions have contributed to growing partisanship in Congress by empowering party leaders and emphasizing the importance of budget votes for party reputation. With steadily increasing partisanship, this study presents evidence that divided government has significant consequences for both the budget process and budget outcomes. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, this book provides a historical institutional perspective on the evolution of congressional budgeting over three decades. It addresses important questions about national politics and developments in Congress, particularly concerning rules, the role of parties, and the consequences of divided government. The book concludes by considering what the findings might imply for national budgeting and deficits in the coming decade.

Political science in the 1970s was influenced by the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Many scholars were concerned with the failure to end the war and the rising levels of defense spending in the face of pressing domestic needs. Only a dozen years earlier, President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the excessive power of the "military—industrial complex." As the Vietnam War was winding down, many Americans had a lingering suspicion that military spending was as much about economic benefits at home as the assertion of American power abroad. Also by the early 1970s, studies of Congress were changing theoretically and methodologically. By the 1970s, congressional scholars were using more sophisticated quantitative methods and beginning to use instrumental rationality as a basis of theory. All of these trends are reflected in the article published by Carol F. Goss in June of 1972 titled, "Military Committee Membership and Defense-related Benefits in the House of Representatives."