POLICY, PUNCTUATIONS - US BUDGET AUTHORITY, 1947-1995

Baumgartner and Jones (1993) described a process of punctuated equilib rium in their study of policymaking in the United States since World W ar II. Evidence was drawn from a series of particular issue-areas, but the model has implications for all areas of policymaking. In this pap er, we explore the validity of this approach with a new dataset that t abulates congressional budget authority at the Office of Management an d Budget subfunction level across all areas of the federal budget for the entire postwar period. We find that government spending is charact erized by much greater change than is typically portrayed in the liter ature, even if there is great stability for most categories most of th e time. In addition, overall patterns of spending have been affected b y two large-scale punctuations. These punctuations divide national spe nding into three epochs. one of postwar adjustment, lasting until FY 1 956; one of robust growth, lasting from 1956 through 1974, and one of restrained growth, beginning in FY 1976. We test the epoch hypothesis against three plausible rival hypotheses: changes in the robustness of the postwar economy; partisan divisions; and public opinion. The epoc h hypothesis survives all of these rivals whether modeled individually or together. This paper provides empirical evidence that punctuations occur, not just in some programs or subsystems, but also throughout g overnment.