| dc.description.abstract | Central to the distributive theory is the idea that members of Congress can use
strategic committee assignments to fund pork projects for their districts. Committees
that are primarily constituency service based are considered most susceptible to pork
barrel politics. The Public Works and Transportation Committee, in particular, has
developed a reputation for distributing pork projects. Adler??s (2002) study of six
committees found impressive evidence that members of certain committees are able to
channel disproportionate benefits to their districts??the lone exception was the Public
Works and Transportation Committee. Given the folklore about Public Works and
??pork,?? this result seems odd. In this study, I make two major adjustments to the
research design. First, I isolate the dollars spent on committee programs that were not
allocated by a formula. Formulas have prior built-in controls that are not subject to
bargaining after the formula has been set, and thus are not illustrative of the pork
process. Second, I expand the years studied (1983-1996) and analyze the data with a
pooled cross-section/time series design, which better controls the potential effects of
time on the distribution of federal funds. These modifications do not produce results to
reconcile the conflict with congressional folklore, instead they question the
generalizability of allocation decisions for constituency service committees. | en |
