Congressional politics 143
Another area in which Congress tends to appropriate more money than
requested is in the field of so-called ‘pork barrel’ legislation, in which money
is appropriated for public works expenditures that will bring work and busi-
ness, and other benefits, to the Congressman’s home district. Particularly im-
portant in this respect are the construction of dams and flood control projects
and irrigation schemes. Many of these are projects that will be carried out
by the US Army Corps of Engineers, a particularly powerful administrative
agency, nominally under the control of the army, which works closely with
members of Congress. In 1966 Congress appropriated money to start work
on sixty-three new water construction projects, although only twenty-nine
had been included in the president’s budget. In other fields, however, the ten-
dency has been for Congress consistently to cut down presidential requests
below what might be considered the normal removal of padding.
The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Com-
mittee share a similar responsibility for recommending tax measures, as
do the appropriations committees for recommending expenditures. These
four committees tend to be even more autonomous than the other stand-
ing committees of Congress. In particular, the House committees have great
prestige and a reputation for considerable expertise. The House almost
always accepts their recommendations; it is also relatively rare for the Ap-
propriations Committee of the House to make amendments to the reports of
its numerous subcommittees, which deal with the appropriation bills for vari-
ous departments and agencies. Before 1974, although the chairmen of these
committees attempted to coordinate activities within their own spheres of
responsibility, there was no one body in Congress that was in a position to
take an overall view of financial affairs. Attempts were made, without suc-
cess, to get these four committees to work more closely together, or to in-
troduce procedures that would give greater continuity to the appropriations
process over a number of years. However, Congress successfully resisted any
attempt to diminish its annual control over the raising of revenue and the
authorisation of expenditure.
As a result of President Richard Nixon’s attempts to circumvent con-
gressional control of finance, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act was passed in 1974, establishing a congressional budget system
to give to Congress an effective control over the national budget. Budget
committees were created in both Houses of Congress and a reconciliation
process was established to enable Congress to coordinate the government’s
spending and revenue operations. It was intended that Congress should take
overall control of the budget away from the administration and produce a
congressional budget to effect the policies that the legislature wanted. The
procedure established in 1974 lay dormant until 1980, when the Senate and
House budget committees combined various spending and taxing propos-
als in a single budget. On taking office in 1981 President Reagan requested
extensive cuts in government spending along with reductions in taxation,
and this meant that the budget committees of the Senate and House would
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(Ron)
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