Congressional politics 141during passage. Sustained pressure by the administration over a number of
sessions of Congress will usually eventually build up enough support to pass
measures that a president is committed to, but in the process it may be nec-
essary to accept considerable modifications to proposed legislation. Further-
more, the timing of legislative policy is often as important as its content, and
this is more in the control of Congress than of the president. Examples of the
complex procedures involved in the legislative process are given in Chapter
11 below, where the fate of proposals for health care and welfare reform by
the Clinton Administration are described.
Congressional control of finance
Ultimately, in all government activities, it is finance that is the controlling
factor. Laws must be enforced, policies must be implemented, and they al-
ways cost money. The raising and spending of money provides the ultimate
control by Congress over the administration, and it provides also an area of
American government that exemplifies the paradoxical relationship between
president and Congress. The broad outlines of the annual budget are fixed
by circumstances and previously adopted policies, and are, therefore, to a
considerable extent outside the control of both president and Congress. But
at the margin, and it is a margin involving billions of dollars, there is a game
of tug-of-war between the two branches of the government that illustrates
both their weaknesses and their strengths. The initiative in financial matters
must come from the administration, and the attempt to use the financial
operations of government as an instrument of overall economic policy must
also largely be made by the president and the administration. Nevertheless,
this is an area of government over which Congress has been most tenacious
in its bid to retain the ultimate control, rejecting all proposals that would
loose its hold on the purse strings. Furthermore, it is in the field of financial
planning that the administration has over the years made its biggest bid to
achieve internal coordination, even if not wholly successfully; yet it is in the
financial sphere that the decentralised character of congressional power is most
apparent.
Estimates of expenditure required for the forthcoming year are prepared
by the departments and agencies and sent to the Office of Management and
Budget to be coordinated. The budget is submitted to Congress in February,
and immediately the effect of the decentralised power structure of Congress
comes into operation. The process of providing funds for government is
dominated by the built-in tensions of the legislative process, for appropria-
tion bills must go through much the same procedures as ordinary legislation.
The Congress is concerned to safeguard the expenditure of public money,
but it is also responsive to constituency and interest pressures. Thus at one
and the same time it may attempt to cut back some administration requests
and to appropriate more than the administration wishes in other directions.
The House and the Senate may differ quite considerably on the amount to be