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54 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/amjorpolisci54 and id is 1 raw text is: After Enactment: The Lives and Deaths of Federal Programs Christopher R. Berry The University of Chicago Barry C. Burden University of Wisconsin-Madison William G. Howell The University of Chicago While many scholars havefocused on theproduction of legislation, we explore life after enactment. Contrary to theprevailing view thatfederal programs are indissoluble, we show thatprogrammatic restructurings and terminations are commonplace. In addition, we observe significant changes in programmatic appropriations. We suggest that a sitting congress is most likely to transform, kill, or cutprograms inheritedfrom an enacting congress when its partisan composition differs substantially. To test this claim, we examine the postenactment histories of everyfederal domestic program established between 1971 and 2003, using a new dataset that distinguishes program death from restructuring. Consistent with our predictions, we find that changes in thepartisan composition ofcongresses have a strong influence on program durability and size. We thus dispel the notion thatfederal programs are everlasting while providing a plausible coalition-based accountfor their evolution. f government's fundamental task is, as Harold Lass- well famously asserted (1936), to decide who gets what, when, and how, then we should add, and for how long. While much recent scholarship has fo- cused on the production of legislation, relatively little has considered what happens to a program once elected offi- cials have enacted it. It is not enough to characterize the course that a particular group of policy makers initially set. Scholars need to identify the enduring effects of pol- icy makers' actions. We need to know whether their foot- prints were quickly washed away or left lasting imprints. Unfortunately, existing research yields few and often mis- leading conclusions about the trajectory of government programs. This article analyzes the durability and size of gov- ernment programs, focusing on the effects of changes in the partisan composition of congresses over time. When the composition of the congress that enacted a program differs markedly from the congress that sits in its judgment, a program should be especially vulner- able to cuts, restructuring, or elimination. Conversely, when the partisan compositions of the enacting and cur- rent congresses look much alike, a program should be less susceptible to legislative tinkering. However intuitive this logic might be, it runs against a long literature in public administration and so deserves careful empirical scrutiny. We therefore examine the size and survival of all fed- eral government domestic programs established between 1971 and 2003 (2,059 programs in total, yielding 20,159 program-year observations). Consistent with our predic- tions, we find that changes in the partisan composition of congresses have a strong influence on both program durability and spending levels. Moreover, these effects are asymmetric: program life spans are regularly short- ened by partisan losses, but lengthened by partisan gains; similarly, programmatic spendingpredictablydeclines af- ter partisan losses, but increases after partisan gains. We thus dispel the dominant notion that federal programs are immortal while providing a plausible coalition- based account of their varying life spans and spending trajectories. Christopher R. Berry is Assistant Professor, The University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (crberry@uchicago.edu). Barry C. Burden is Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706 (bcburden@wisc.edu). William G. Howell is Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics, The University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (whowell@uchicago.edu). Versions of this article were presented at meetings of the American Political Science Association, Midwest Political Science Association, Public Choice Society, and the American Politics Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We thank Sarah Anzia, Phil Jones, and lan Yohai for research assistance and Scott Adler, Scott Ainsworth, Daniel Carpenter, Diana Evans, Glen Krutz, Kenneth Shepsle, and Boris Shor for helpful feedback on earlier drafts. We are indebted to Kenneth Bickers and Robert Stein for sharing their CFDA database. American Journal ofPolitical Science, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 2010, Pp. 1-17 02010, Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853 1