Incrementalism in Appropriations: Small Aggregation, Big Changes

U.S. federal budget dynamics, as a major attribute of the legislative and bureaucratic decision-making processes, increasingly calls into question the scholarly focus on incrementalism. What constitutes a “small” change is largely unspecifi ed in previous research that has also been unable to assess incrementalism across multiple levels of aggregation. Using a unique budgetary database, this article analyzes whether budgetary changes are in fact “small” at diff erent levels of aggregation. Surprisingly, a low proportion of changes are small by any logical standard. During most years, more than one-fi fth of budgetary changes are greater than 50 percent, and nearly half are more than 10 percent. Th e level of aggregation is also important for assessing whether political variables infl uence incrementalism. A salient fi nding: change in party control refl ects greater infl uence within micro-level budget decisions, while divided government manifests more impact on aggregate-level budget decisions.