Broader Implications of Congress's Abandoning the Power of the Purse

David Super

     When I came to Washington, no group of legislators was more distinctive than the appropriators.  They were quite insular and strikingly bipartisan:  Fiercely conservative Republicans and extremely progressive Democrats became almost indistinguishable when they went into the Appropriations Committees' meeting rooms.  The only group whose insular identities and bipartisanship that could come close were members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.  

     The reason seemed fairly clear:  Members of each Committee were hard at work securing special favors for their states, districts, or donors and were disinclined to shine much light on other Members' questionable projects because they had plenty of their own.  I always assumed that this self-interested commitment to bipartisanship would survive rising polarization even after all other Members abandoned traditions and personal friendships.

    This year, the distinctive identities of the appropriators and the aggies collapsed and with it all semblance of bipartisanship.  This Spring, at the White House's behest, Republican appropriators refused even to discuss year-long spending bills with their Democratic counterparts.  Then last week, almost all appropriators voted lock-step for the President's proposal to rescind billions of dollars that they had just appropriated (relying on Democratic votes).  They have to know that the combination of bipartisan appropriations and partisan rescissions is unsustainable because Democrats will have no assurance that they will get anything for their votes.  Deals have always been the political life-blood for appropriators.  Not any more.  

    Similarly, in addition to its more prominent upper-income tax cuts, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act also slashed nutrition assistance deeper to make room for a range of subsidies for corporate agriculture.  Historically, Agriculture Committee Members of all persuasions sought to avoid the perception of cutting nutrition assistance to support farm subsidies for fear that, once that precedent was set, off-committee Members would later demand farm subsidy cuts to pay for expanding anti-hunger programs.  Some Republicans on the Agriculture Committees still have those worries, but they no longer felt they had the political room to act on them. 

    I explored the possible consequences of this collapse of institutional identities within Congress in a guest essay for Verfassungsblog that may be of interest to some.  

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