The institutions of federal fiscal-policy making seem incapable of confronting the central domestic issues of the day. This paper presents a model of congressional decision-making in which legislators' incentives are contrary to fiscal efficiency. In such an environment, a "strong" president may be able to lead congress away from inefficient budgets. The paper specifies a model of what constitutes a strong president, namely a president with resources to build congressional coalitions and a credible veto to force "all-or-nothing" choices between reform and the inefficient status quo. President Reagan's role in the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 is detailed in the light of this model; the analysis reveals the role of executive resources and the importance of the veto strategy to major fiscal reform.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
4395.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 1993 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4395
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gale, W.G. & scholz, J.K., 1992.
"IRAS and Household Saving,"
Papers
9244, Tilburg - Center for Economic Research.
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