A House Appropriations Subcommittee Influences on Budgetary Decisions.

The article examines U.S. House appropriations subcommittee that seeks to suggest some of the variables, which influence these budgetary decisions. The data on which this paper is based were gathered from the hearings, reports, and the Congressional Record concerned with this subcommittee, for fiscal years 1960, 1961, and 1962. The record of the subcommittee that heard supplemental appropriations requests for these agencies augmented the written record of the regular subcommittee. The following variables appear to be particularly important in explaining subcommittee decisions: (1) congressmen's policy preferences and the extent to which agency budgets are viewed as "cuttable"; (2) congressmen's constituents and agencies' clienteles; (3) the confidence which subcommittee members have in the agency's administrators; (4) an effective presentation of requests, and especially the ability of the agency to quantify its activities; and (5) strategies which the agencies use, and the conditions under which they are used.