Who are the "Deficit Hawks?": An Analysis of the Concord Coalition Congressional Vote Scores

Abstract

Which members of Congress are most likely to consistently support policies leading to balanced budgets? Who are the true “deficit hawks” in Congress? This paper analyzes the degree to which the nation’s representatives and senators support policies conducive toward balancing the budget and reducing the national debt, as measured by the annual Fiscal Responsibility scores from 1995-2000 given to members of the House and Senate by the Concord Coalition. An analysis of the Concord Coalition vote scores indicates that a legislator’s party tends to have an important effect on congressional votes on balanced budget priorities, though the direction of partisan influences is not consistent. Fiscal responsibility is related to party preference, but varies over time. That is, for some years being a Republican has a positive effect on scores by the Concord Coalition, in other years there is a positive relationship being a Democrat. The fact that the votes that the Concord Coalition find most relevant to deficit reduction cannot be placed consistently on the left or right of the American ideological spectrum differentiates it from most other interest groups from an ideological perspective.