George Washington University

Professor John Sides of George Washington University is launching a new line of research examining the broken politics of U.S. fiscal policy to ascertain what aspects of the policymaking process are broken and what can be done to address them. He will test hypotheses in part through a public opinion survey to assess the extent to which citizens grasp fiscal issues and then whether the citizens’ voting behavior is driven by a desire to hold elected representatives responsible for fiscal stewardship. He will also interview elite policymakers in Washington to get a top-down set of perspectives to complement the bottom-up views offered via the survey process. This research will complement work the foundation is funding to explore longer-run changes to the federal budget process.