The Return of Budget Deficits in the United States

Abstract

In November 2005, because of Republican defections, the U.S. House of Representatives refused to accept the conference agreement on the LaborHHS appropriations bill-the first time the House leadership had lost an appropriations vote in ten years (Swindell, 2005). timing was likely no coincidence, as (Republican) Majority Leader Tom DeLay had just stepped down after being indicted by a (Democratic) Texas prosecutor. DeLay, even more than his predecessor Newt Gingrich, had been a transformative leader who greatly centralized power. He broke formal and informal rules, such as holding floor votes open for as long as it took to twist a sufficient number of arms (this was done to pass the Medicare prescription drug benefit), depreciated seniority rights so that only close associates of the leaders became committee chairs, and abolished several appropriations subcommittees. No wonder his nickname became The Hammer. So did DeLay's absence trigger a watershed event for the country's budget policy process and politics?