ABSTRACT

When it comes to budgeting, the president and Congress often have conflicting goals. The constitutionally mandated separation of powers produces awkward budgetary dynamics. Partisanship may be the dynamic that keeps the budget process manageable. An analysis of congressional support for the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Bill -- the congressionally modified version of the Clinton budget blueprint -- indicates the significance of partisanship and ideology in determining support of President Clinton's budgetary proposals. Among Democrats, the decision whether or not to support the budget the President endorsed was largely determined by the demographic and political characteristics of a member's district. The distinct differences between the districts among those who supported the Clinton budget and those who opposed it, both demographically and politically, demonstrates the potential effects of the constituent nature of congressional representation on the budget process. Yet, despite the extreme difficulty in getti ng the measure through Congress, since the passage of the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Bill the federal budget deficit has declined dramatically (until 2002) -- by 1998 the federal government actually had a budget surplus for the first time in three decades and by 2000 the surplus was $236 billion, the highest federal surplus ever.

THE PRESIDENT'S ROLE IN THE MODERN BUDGET PROCESS

Congress and the presidency are designed not to get along. The Founding Fathers, in order to insure that one branch of the government did not become too powerful, designed a system of government where the legislative and executive branches would be rivals. Due to the fact that Congress is a decentralized body of 535 members, Congress often appears weak compared to the executive branch, which is more likely to speak with one voice. Since the New Deal era, the presidency has gradually taken on increasing budgetary power while Congress has often seemed unable to gain control over its own diverse institutional self-interests. Today, there seems to be little doubt that the executive branch has become a more powerful player in the budget process than Congress, despite the intentions of the Founding Fathers. The nature of the presidency, combined with the tremendous rise in scope of the federal government has made the president the major player in the budget process in the twentieth century. This does not mean, howe ver, that Congress has become irrelevant -- far from it. In order for presidential budgetary proposals to become law, after all, they must be passed by Congress.

The modern presidency began with the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, in which Congress delegated its traditional powers over compiling the preliminary draft of the budget to the president. The law required the president to develop and submit a budget to Congress and established the Bureau of the Budget (later the Office of Management and Budget). Congress gave the president more power in the budget process because it found itself unable to cope with the rising demands of government and the dogma of public administration in the Progressive Era placed great faith in the nonpolitical executive which would be...