THE PROGRAMMATIC EXPANSION OF THE UNITED-STATES GOVERNMENT

This paper articulates a framework for analyzing government growth at a programmatic level. Change in the size of government is conceptualized as a combination of incremental change in expenditures on ongoing programs and net change in expenditures stemming from program creation and termination. To utilize this framework, a new data base on U.S. federal domestic programs for the period from 1971 through 1990 is introduced. With these data, the paper estimates the amount of the change in domestic spending that has been due to incremental changes in ongoing programs and to program creation and termination. The possibility of tradeoffs between these factors is examined with reference to the patterns of expansion and contraction of entitlement programs, discretionary programs, and insurance and loan programs over the past two decades. The paper concludes with an assessment of the utility of this approach for the study of government growth.