T H E P O L I T I C S O F R E V E N U E S H A R I N G

By Paul R. Dommel (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1974, 211 pp. $6.95)

This book should be read by everyone interested in intergovernmental fiscal relations policy. It is a superb analysis of the making of public policy with respect to revenue sharing. It takes a critical look at the political history of revenue sharing and its implications for the future.

In this fascinating book the author does three things. He provides an overview of the public policymaking process that has evolved in the United States; he traces the political and legislative history of revenue sharing since 1964, and thereby reveals the working of the complex American political process; and he raises some normative questions about revenue sharing and suggests some criteria by which the policy can be evaluated. These tasks are done concisely and very conversationally, which makes this book one of the most readable and interesting studies of the American political process.

In this review I will only consider one of the author's objectives; namely, that of providing an overview of the public policymaking process. This is by far the most important one. The political and legislative history of revenue sharing is important only as a case study of the mechanics of the policymaking process as described in the overview. The only shortcoming of the book is that the author does not suggest all-encompassing criteria by which all public policy may be evaluated.

Professor Dommel reveals the most glaring aspects of how policy makers deal with national problems; how they proceed with the process of identifying prob- lems, devising policy responses, and putting policy into effect. The way they proceed has variously been referred to as "gradualism," "incrementalism," or by more jargonized terms such as "successive limited comparisons." What this all means is that policymaking in this country has a building block approach, flowing from the political interplay among Congress, the President, the bureaucracy, interest groups, and the invisible hand of national consensus. The policy makers are confronted with a problem; they adopt a politically acceptable but limited approach to its solution; and then, step by step, they begin to push the margins of

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the policy outward, doing a bit more this year, perhaps a bit more next year. The policy makers are not given to quantum policy leaps or once-and-for-all solutions.

The author points out that it is important to understand that every public policy issue has an environment from which it evolved and one in which the dispute is carried on, and from which it cannot be detached. These environments are made up of intangibles such as historical experience and ideologies, and tangibles such as the next election, the existence and operation of policy systems (i.e. congressional committees, federal bureaucracies, state and local governments). The existence of policy environments is a given. The nature of these environments is determined by those at the center of the dispute who actively seek to manipulate the environment to their advantage.

Manipulation, the author says, is essential to understanding that problems compete for attention. Policy makers are incapable of dealing with all problems and demands that confront them because of the element of time. This competition is a critical feature of public policymaking and is central to the politics of getting problems to the policy makers. Several routes are suggest by which a problem gets on the policy makers' agenda: (a) as a result of policy application, (b) as a result of events which pose an immediate threat to a significant number of persons, (c) as a result of political campaigns, and (d) as publicity generates support for action or as a single individual is instrumental in bringing attention to the problem. As the book shows, revenue sharing became a major item on the government agenda by a combination of all four, and they converged in the late 1960s to make revenue sharing one of the most visible policy controversies in Washington.

Once the issue is on the agenda of the policy makers, and they have had an opportunity to draft a policy response, then comes the congressional politics. Here, there are several opportunities to amend, modify, change, or kill a particular policy response. The reason is linked to the source and distribution of power in congress. Congressional power is decentralized, with the committees and sub- committees as the principal loci. Within these committees and subcommittees, power is further distributed on the basis of seniority. Congress can be viewed as a multitude of pyramids, representing the committee and subcommittee hierarchies. The Senate and House leadership--the Speaker, party floor leaders, and party whips--acts as influential party power brokers in this system of decentralized power.

The source of a committee's power is its jurisdiction over a particular area of public policy. Consequently, committees are not of equal importance. For exam- ple, the House Appropriations Committee with its power of the purse is more influential than the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries; the Armed Services Committee with its links to the Pentagon has more power than the House Administration Committee. By their jurisdiction over particular policies the committees are also very influential with the bureaucracies administering the programs. This linkage is, however, mutual in that the committees expect support from their bureaucratic and interest group partners in maintaining and expanding

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programs in which they have a mutual interest. A committee's pyramid is enlarged by its having authority over growing programs; its pyramid shrinks if it finds its programs dwindling or disappearing.

Dommel explains that the existence and operation of policy systems and subsys- tems is of fundamental importance to understanding the making of public policy. The mutuality of interest among members of a particular policy system, their determination to preserve, protect, and expand their programs and influence, present a challenge to those who would alter them. Alteration is made even more politically complex because those who want to liquidate or alter some subsystems would leave other favored subsystems untouched. For example, a state highway official may favor elimination of the anti-poverty program to save money, but would leave the federal Highway Trust Fund and its state counterpart in tact. At the same time, the local parks and recreation director may wish to divert money from the Highway Fund to Open Space and Environmental Programs. The consequence is that few proposals to alter program structures significantly are successful.

The determining factor as to whether a proposal survives long enough to become policy is the power of the proposal's lobbying group. In our pluralistic society organized interests with a strong lobbying group have always been more successful operators in the political and economic arena than have unorganized elements.

The point here is that once policy is established, systems and subsystems develop around it to protect its existence. These systems and subsystems quietly gain a foothold in the political and bureaucratic system. They then influence the legislative process and further cause power to be fragmented in congress among committees and subcommittees.

Even though committee hearings are an integral part of the legislative process, they are in many instances overrated. The reason is that the most critical stage in the life of a proposed policy comes after the hearings end, when the committee goes into closed-door executive sessions. There the outcome depends more on the political ideologies and aspirations of individual congressmen than on the power and workings of systems and subsystems.

Consequently, a major point to note here is that the prospects for policy innovation are improved if the idea is embraced by the President, and he uses the power of his office to help clear the obstacles. Conversely, where the President is disinterested or opposed, prospects for major policy change are diminished. In any case, the President looms so large in the total process of public policymaking that it is essential to any policy study to determine the President's position on the particular issue.

The President, unlike any other policy maker, has three opportunities to make policy presentations to the congress and the American people, and thereby drum up support. They are the President's State of the Union Message, the annual Budget Message, and the Economic Report. Of the three, the State of the Union Message gets the greatest public visibility. It is covered by the major television networks in its entirety and gets the headlines in the newspapers. Therefore, if the President

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wants to make a policy proposal a major and highly visible issue, disclosing the new plan in the State of the Union Message would certainly help achieve this effect. The politics of revenue sharing illustrates the critical role of the President in influencing the fate of any major policy proposal.

What the author's overview seems to indicate is that the study of public policy makers is not a study of any simple linear process. There is no systematic way by which policy makers identify, attack, or solve national problems. The making of public policy is influenced by: (1) the environment in which the dispute is carded on, (2) the political makeup of those at the center of the dispute who actively seek to manipulate the environment to their advantage, (3) congressional politics where congressional committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over particular areas of public policy and attempt to influence other policy areas, (4) powerful lobbying and interest groups, and, most important of all, (5) the position of the President on a particular issue. To understand and analyze critically the public policymaking process in this country one must understand how these influences interact in establishing national policies.

I strongly suggest that everyone read this fascinating and informative book. James Fortune

Black Economic Research Center