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The Relationship Between Comprehensive Budgeting and Party Polarization in the U.S. Congress

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous groups by transforming many battles over separate policy priorities into one grand battle over the biggest question in American politics: What is the role of government? The 1974 shift to comprehensive budgeting, along with subsequent additional controls on budget practices, has magnified and accelerated the effects of the many polarizing forces that have characterized the last 40 years of American politics. With this conclusion come unanswered questions regarding the merits of a distinct two-party system, as well as the potential need for comprehensive budgeting despite its political challenges.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cmc_theses-1700
Date01 January 2013
CreatorsEames, Anna
PublisherScholarship @ Claremont
Source SetsClaremont Colleges
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceCMC Senior Theses
Rights© 2013 Anna Eames

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