committees and the budget process: how representative are congressional budgeting committees?

COMMITTEES AND THE BUDGET PROCESS:

HOW REPRESENTATIVE ARE CONGRESSIONAL

BUDGETING COMMITTEES?

Patrick Fisher Slippeyy Rock University

Congressional committees that concern themselves with budgetary matters have the potential to be extremely powerful in the making of American public policy. Given this, my work is an attempt to determine if the Appropriations, Ways and MeandFinance, and Budget Committees are representative of the House and Senate as a whole. Vthese budgeting committees are a biased subset of Congress, this unrepresentativeness could be an important determining factor in deciding the winners andlosers in budget decisions. My analysis, however, shows that these committees are indeed representative of the entire Congress. Those members of Con- gress who serve on budgeting committees differ little from those who serve on other congressional committees.

T h e committee system is at the heart of the American legislative process. To understand the actions that Congress takes in the budget process, one has to understand how the dynamics of congressional committees influence the budget process.

There are three important committees which have the primary respon- sibility for producing the nation’s budget: Appropriations, Ways and MeandFinance, and Budget. Each of these “money” committees sees its role in the budget process somewhat differently and, to a large degree, these committees have contradictory policy goals. The money committees, there- fore, are often in conflict when it comes to budgeting. As the findings of this paper suggest, however, the conflict between these committees appears to be the result of the committees’ function in the budget process rather than a result of the varied membership of these committees.

Given the fact that the congressional committees that concern themselves with budgetary details have the potential to be extremely powerful in budgetary matters, it is important to determine if these committees are

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representative of the House and Senate as a whole. The previous literature on this subject has been inharmonious. While it has been found that committees not representative of the body as a whole are rare (Krehbiel 1990; Hall and Grofman 1990), it has also been found that the members of the money committees are noticeably different from the entire House (Fenno 1973).

This paper will take a subject studied before-whether committees are representative of the body as a whole-and look specifically at the representativeness of the money committees, which have previously been found to be different from the rest of the House. If the money committees are a biased subset of Congress, this unrepresentativeness could be an important determining factor in deciding the winners and losers in budget decisions. Due to the potential consequences of these Committees’ decisions, any differences between these committees and Congress as a whole should be viewed suspiciously.

THE COMMITTEE SYSTEM AND BUDGETING Committee assignments are best understood as a set of institutional

arrangements that channel member interests into positions of legislative advantage. Committees are central to congressional decision-making because they serve the interestsof both the institution and individual members. By dividing into workgroups, Congress saves time, gains expertise and encourages specialization. Committees divide labor in order to handle a large and complex workload. Members of Congress are encouraged to work diligently on their committee work because their decisions often determine policy outcomes. Committees separate issues into manageable pieces. Committees are a means to come to policy agreements, to stabilize political influence over policy areas, and are potentially powerful realms of policy making. Thus, it can be argued that strong committees are essential to a strong Congress (Smith and Deering 1990).

The Budget, Appropriations, and Ways and MeansFinance Committees are especially important among the many congressional committees because of the policies they handle and the connection between these policies and the power of Congress within the American political system. Members of Congress want these three committees to be influential and capable of making independent policy judgments which will be supported by the Committee of the Whole. At the same time, however, Congress wants these two committees to have a special degree of responsiveness. Because of the power and influence ofthese committee members, party leaders play a more active part in the recruitment and selection for these two committees than for others (Fenno 1973). Taxing and spending, after all, are often consid-

Committees and the Budget Process 771

ered to be the most important legislative powers in representative democ- racies.

Appropriations The power of the Appropriations Committees can be seen by the fact

that the heads of the 13 appropriations subcommittees are broadly known as the “College of Cardinals.” Every year appropriations is charged with producing the 13 spending bills that keep government running.

Traditionally, the Appropriations Committees have been seen as influential because they make independent judgments and carry those judgments on the House floor (Fenno 1973). The Appropriations Committees see themselves in the role of watchdog of the budget process. The Appropria- tions Committees were created in the 1860s to control governmental spending, a tradition that they have tried to maintain. Thus, budget cutting has been identified as the foremost operational goal of the House Appro- priations Committee (Fenno 1966). The Appropriations Committee would annually produce figures showing that they cut the budget, providing proof that they were the guardians of the purse.

From 1921 until the early 1970s, the Appropriations Committees domi- nated the budget process. Since the early 1970s, however, their power has been significantly curtailed by two forces. First, dismayed by the Appro- priations Committees’ conservative outlook on social issues, other committees devised means to get around them. A variety of back-door methods of financing was devised or extended. Second, the creation of the Budget Committees usurped traditional power from Appropriations (Shuman 1988). Due to the changing budgetary environment in the 1970s, the Appropriations Committees have seen themselves withdraw from their previous positions as guardians of the treasury. Traditional support for committee norms are no longer evident as committee members have sought greater self-expression (Wildavsky 1992). For many members of Congress, program advocacy has become the main purpose of appropriations as opposed to holding down spending. Even though the power of the Appro- priations Committee has gone down in relation to other committees, it remains one of the most powerful committees.

The Ways and Means Committee and the Finance Committee The Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Finance Com-

mittee in the Senate create the legislation that generates the revenue for the federal government. These two committees are extremely powerful because they control sources of revenue. In addition to being responsible for


tax legislation, the committees are responsible for trade and many of the largest spending programs in the budget, including Social Security and Medicare.

From their birth until the Civil War, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee acted not only as the tax writing committees, but they also served as appropriations and banking committees as well. After the Civil War these committees were finally stripped oftheir appropriations and banking functions as a means of limiting spending and curtailing the power of Ways and MeandFinance. The tax-writing committees, however, are still unique in having a key role in both the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget. Today the tax-writing committees have more power over the budget than the budget committees. For example, Ways and MeandFinance had control of 100 percent of taxes in 1988 and 56 percent of spending. In other words, these committees have control of nearly three-fourths of the budget (Shuman 1988).

Since the tax-writing committees have almost complete control of the revenue side of the budget, control a good portion of the spending, and have jurisdiction over both the deficit and the national debt, many observers of Congress conclude that they have excessive control (LeLoup 1980). The power of the House Ways and Means can be seen by the fact that this committee (along with Appropriations and Rules) is among the most difficult for which to get selected. The importance of the Ways and Means Committee can further be seen by the fact that this committee was the battleground for some of President Clinton’s most ambitious proposals, including health care reform, overhaul of the welfare system, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Budget Committee The third committee with the potential to play an important role in the

creation of the national budget is the Budget Committee. The balancing of congressional interests begins in the Budget Committee. Although they can take a hard line and try to block legislation that they do not support, the Budget Committees try to accommodate the budget process to the diverse legislative interests of other committees, especially those of Appropriations and Ways and MeandFinance. The dilemma for the Budget Committees is to accommodate without giving up all meaningful enforcement. The Budget Committees, however, are unable to prevent other committees from doing what they want to do (Schick 1980). Both Budget Committees are really, according to Ippolito (198l), “adding-machine” committees that gather the demands of the spending committees and impose as much restraint on them as the current congressional mood allows. Neither Budget

Committees and the Budpet Process 773

Committee has the authority to act as the sole interpreter of congressional preferences, greatly weakening their designated role as guardians of the budget process.

The Budget Committees are Congress’ macrobudgeters. The Budget Committees have a key role in setting the budget parameters and in allocating funds to approximately 20 broad functional categories such as health, income security, and national defense. These committees, however, are not permitted to line-item their budget resolutions by specifying the programs to be funded; this is the jurisdiction of other committees. This is a major restriction on the power of the Budget Committees (Cogan, Muris, and Schick 1994).

Congress wanted to make the Budget Committees powerful, but not too powerful because the Appropriations and Ways and Means/ Finance Com- mittees did not relish the idea of a rival Budget Committee. Thus, Congress neutralized the enormous scope ofthe Budget Committees by denying them any legislative jurisdiction. Yet, these committees were to serve as guardians within congressional ranks because the budget is not a self-made or self-enforcing decision. The Budget Committees were made somewhat independent in order to insure that they would have rivals in the budget process, thereby diluting their power. Thus, once the budget resolutions have been passed, the Budget Committees must try to enforce them, often by challenging the spending preferences of other congressional committees. Also diluting the power of these committees is the fact that there exists no automatic restraint upon the number of floor amendments which could substantially change the Budget Committees’ proposals (Schick 1990).

The Senate Budget Committee is more typical of Senate committees than the House Budget Committee is of House committees. The Senate Budget Committee is independent, influential, and effectively integrated into the Senate’s decision-making process. The House Budget Committee, on the other hand, is a hybrid-it is unlike any other committee. As Lance LeLoup wrote, the House Budget Committee is “less independent in its actions, less autonomous than other committees, and has not attained integration in its highly conflictual environment” (198 1, 8 1). The base of support in the House is tenuous, and it has been difficult for the committee to build and maintain a majority. The House Budget Committee must also confront the fact that it is not necessarily a desirable committee on which to be a member, at least compared to Appropriations and Ways and Means. Although the Budget Committee members deal with huge sums of money, unlike the case with Appropriations, it is difficult for members to point to tangible benefits secured for their district.

774 Southeastern Political Review VoL 25 No. 4

A seat on the Budget Committee is usually not sought after to enhance reelection chances. Constituency pressures associated with the budget resolutions appear to be significantly greater in the House than the Senate (LeLoup 1980). In fact, some House members indicate that service on the Budget Committee is detrimental to re-election because support of budget resolutions has caused problems back in the district. Despite this fact, the Budget Committee is still a very desirable committee on which to serve for House members. The potential power of the committee can be demon- strated by the fact that service on this committee is limited-no member can serve more than six years out of every ten. This was done to prevent the members from becoming too powerful, as was feared by members of other committees, especially Appropriations and Ways and Means.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE MEMBERSHIP OF CONGRESSIONAL BUDGETING COMMITTEES

Are the Budget, Ways and MeansEinance and Appropriations Commit- tees representative of the rest of Congress, or do they consist of congressional outliers? It has been found that committees composed of preference outliers are rare-congressional committees do not tend to be biased subsets of their parent chambers. Accordingly, most standing committees do not have general ideology medians or means significantly different from the House (Krehbiel 1990; Hall and Grofman 1990). On the other hand, Fenno (1973) found that the Ways and Means Committee was consistently more partisan across all policy areas than the House as a whole, and he found that the House Appropriations Committee was consistently less partisan than the chamber as a whole. Since the committees that deal with budgetary issues are so powerful, any biases reflected in these committees, whether they be in terms of ideology or the types of districts they represent, would have important implications for budgeting and democratic accountability.

Table 1 displays the means for members and nonmembers of the House and Senate money committees during the 103rd Congress for the following variables: Economic =the representative’s economic ideology as measured by Cohen and Schneider (1994,1995) (with 0 = most conservative and 100 = most liberal); Rural = percentage of member’s district that is rural; White = percentage of member’s district that is listed as white according to the US, census; Income = per capita income of member’s districts, in thousands; Pres92 = percentage of member’s district that voted for Bill Clinton in 1992; Terms = the number ofterms each member in the House has served (for the Senate, the variable used is the number of years the members have served in that body); Unity = member’s party unity scores, as compiled by


Congressional Quarterly (1 993, 1994); and Support = presidential support scores as compiled by Congressional Quarterly (1993, 1994).

Among the variables used to compare members and nonmembers are district demographic characteristics (Rural, White, and Income), representative political characteristics (Economic, TermsNears, and Unity) and the presidential vote of the district (Pres92). By searching for any potential differences in the demographics and political behavior of the districts members of Congress represent, it is hoped that any potential bias of those on the money committees that is not found simply through the normal analysis of representative political characteristics will be discovered. In a representative democracy such as the United States, one would expect a representative to be significantly influenced by his or her constituency. Since members of Congress may have parochial interests when it comes to budgeting, an important factor in determining the actions of those on the money committees may be the demographic characteristics of the representative’s district. A representative’s voting record may not account for all behavior of the representative.

The data in Table 1 indicate that there is apparently little difference between committee members and nonmembers. The only exception to this appears to be the House Appropriations Committee, which had statistically significant differences between members and nonmembers for the economic and terms variables. The fact that members of the House Appropria- tions Committee tended to be more liberal on economic issues may be explained by the fact that the Democrats had a disproportionate share of seats on this committee. It may also suggest, however, that liberals are more attracted to being on a committee that deals with spending. This result may imply a pro-spending bias of the Appropriations Committee. The fact that members of the House Appropriations Committee tended to have more seniority than nonmembers is probably more straightforward-few fresh- men get on this prestigious committee and many members must wait a number ofterms to get on Appropriations. That members ofAppropriations tend to have been in the House longer is simply the result of the difficulty of getting on the committee.

The data indicate that there are no major differences between those on the money committees and those not on these committees (see Table 2). The data indicate that for House Appropriations, the only statistically significant explanatory variables were the number of terms members served (committee members generally have served for more terms than nonmembers) and economic ideology (committee members tend to be more liberal on economic issues than nonmembers). For Ways and Means, only the terms served variable was statistically significant. Thus, Fenno’s claim that


Table 1 A Comparison of the Characteristics of Members and Nonmembers of the Budget, Appropriations,

and Ways and MeandFinance Committees’

House Senate Variable Members Nonmembers Members Nonmembers

Budget Economic 45.6 Rural 24.7 White 79.7 Income 14.9 Pres92 43.2 TermdYears 4.4 Ilnity 86.8 support 65.1

Economic 54.7 Rural 27.9 White 74.8 Income 13.9 Pres92 45.4 TermsiYears 7.2 Unity 90.2 support 70.0

Ways and MeansJF’inance Economic 49.2 Rural 18.4 White 74.7 Income 14.6 Pres92 46.8 TermsNears 6.3 Unity 89.8 support 68.2

Appropriations

46.9 24.8 75.2 14.4 43.8 5.4

88.4 65.2

45.6* 24.3 15.9 14.5 43.5

88.0 64.4

5.0*

46.8 25.4 75.8 14.4 43.5

5.1 88.1 64.9

45.8 29.3 81.7 13.9 41.8 10.0 86.3 64.9

47.3 30.7 81.7 13.6 42.6 12.6 86.8 65.4

48.6 34.0 88.2 13.0 41.1 13.9 86.2 69.5

46.5 32.5 84.3 13.6 41.0 11.5 85.4 66.5

45.9 32.3 84.6 13.7 40.7 10.7 85.1 66.5

45.8 31.3 82.7 13.8 41.2 10.6 85.4 65.4

‘p < .os ‘Each figure represents the means of members and nonmembers of the respective committee. Economic = eco-

nomic ideology as measured by the Nu~iotiulkimrul (with 0 = most conservative and 100 =most liberal), Rural =percentage of member’s district that is rural, White = percentage of member’s district that is listed as white according to the U.S. census, Income = per capita income of member’s district, in thousands, Pres92 =percentage of member’s district that voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, Terms = the number of terms each member in the House has served (for the Senate, the variable used is the number of years the member has served in that body), Unity =member’s party unity scores, as compiled by C’n,i~resuiorrul~uu~~erly, and Support = presidential support scores as compiled by Cwigressic~~iul Quurler/y.

the Ways and Means Committee was more partisan than the whole House did not appear to hold true during the 103rd Congress. The House Budget Committee, which was created after Fenno’s 1973 analysis of the committee system, appears to be an unbiased subset of the total body-none of the variables were statistically significant.


Table 2 Pearson Correlations of the Representativeness of the Budget,

Appropriations, and Ways and MeadFinance Committees’

Budget Appropriations Ways and Means House

Economic -.014 .106* .027 Rural -.002 ,057 -.091 White ,059 -.022 -.015 Income .04 1 -.045 .013 Pres92 -.O 17 .053 ,075 Terms -.05 1 .199*** .094* Unity -.047 ,069 ,045 support -.001 ,093 ,049

Economic -.011 .023 .040 Rural -.089 -.050 .073 White -.092 -.I 10 .I86

Senate

Income ,058 -.009 -.I35 Pres92 ,052 ,142 -.008 Terms -.073 ,098 .I53 Unity .030 ,065 .024 support -.024 -.017 .060

*p < .05; ***p < ,001 IEconoinic = economic ideology as measured by the Nuliotral Joumul(with 0 = most conservative and 100 =

most liberal), Rural = percentage of member’s district that is rural, White = percentage of member’s district that is listed as white according to the U S . census, Income =per capita income of member’s district, in thousands, Pres92 =percentage of member’s district that voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, Terms =the number of terms each member in the House has served (for the Senate, the variable used is the number of years the member has served in that body), Unity = member’s party unity scores, as compiled by C < J ~ ~ ~ R S . S ~ O ~ U / Qiiurfcrly, and Support = presidential support scores as compiled by Cc~t~g~ssi fo~~ul Quurlrr/y.

Table 2 also displays the results of the correlations for the Senate money committees. For all three committees, there were no statistically significant variables. This finding suggests that the Senate committees are apparently unbiased subsets of the entire Senate. This is consistent with the literature on Senate committees. The major reason this should be expected is that the partisan balance on these Senate committees is more equitable than it is in the House, and a greater percentage of the Seante is on each committee than the House, which will tend to make Senate committees, by their very nature, more representative of the entire body.

CONCLUSION An analysis of the representativeness of the congressional money com-

mittees (Tables 1 and 2) indicates that the Budget, Appropriations, and Ways and MeansIFinance Committees are not in any way an “outlier” from


other committees. That is, the membership of the money committees tends to be consistent with the membership of other congressional committees. This finding is important for the concept of democratic accountability of the budget process. Budgetary outcomes appear to be the result of the normal dynamics of the committee system. The budget does not appear to be manipulated by members unrepresentative of the body as a whole. Though the committee system may have many faults and may not be the best way to budget, budgetary outcomes are, for better or worse, a result of this process.

REFERENCES Cogan, John, Timothy Murk, and Allen Schick. 1994. The Budget Puzzle.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cohen, Richard, and William Schneider. 1994. “Choosing Sides.” Na-

tional Journal January 22: 170-89. Cohen, Richard, and William Schneider. 1995. “Epitaph for an Era.”

National Journal January 14:83-105. CongressionaI Quarter&. 1993. “For the Record.” December 18:3572-

97. Congressional Quarterly. 1994. “For the Record.” December 3 1:3652-

79. Fenno, Richard F. 1966. The Power ofthe Purse. Boston: Little, Brown

and Co. Fenno, Richard F. 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little,

Brown and Co.

Hall, Richard, and Bernard Grofman. 1990. “The Committee Assignment Process and the Conditional Nature of Committee Bias.” American Political Science Review 84: 1149-66.

Ippolito, Dennis S. 1981. Congressional Spending. Ithaca, N Y : Cornell University Press.

Krehbiel, Keith. 1990. “Are Congressional Committees Composed of Preference Outliers?” American Political Science Review. 84: 149-64.

LeLoup, Lance. 1980. The Fiscal Congress. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Schick, Allen. 1980. Congress andMoney. Washington, DC: AEI. Shuman, Howard E. 1988. Politics and the Budget. 2d ed. Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.


Smith, Steven, and Christopher Deering. 1990. Committees in Congress.

Wildavsky, Aaron. 1992. The New Politics of the Budgetary Process. 2d Washington, DC: CQ Press.

ed. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co.

committees and the budget process: how representative are congressional budgeting committees?

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