Voters and Presidents

About the Book

In this book the authors develop and test a model in which federal fiscal policy and presidential election outcomes are interrelated. On the one hand, as Machiavelli would have conjectured, when fiscal policy is expansionary, the candidate of the party occupying the White House tends to lose; when fiscal policy is cutback, the incumbent candidate tends to win. On the other hand, the longer a party’s reign in the White House, the more likely the president is to pursue an expansionary policy. At the confluence of these contrary behavioral currents is found the politically optimal level of spending. Data from 33 presidential elections spanning one and a quarter centuries lend empirical support to this model. A reciprocal relationship between presidential elections and fiscal policy maintains the size of the federal budget relative to the economy within bounds of what the majority of voters will support. The American fiscal- electoral system is stable and self-regulating.

About the Author

Alfred G. Cuzán is Professor of Political Science at The University of West Florida. Richard J. Heggen is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of New Mexico. Charles M. Bundrick is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at The University of West Florida.