The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

Why do majority congressional parties seem unable to act as an effective policy-making force? They routinely delegate their power to others—internally to standing committees and subcommittees within each chamber, externally to the president and to the bureaucracy. Conventional wisdom in political science insists that such delegation leads inevitably to abdication—usually by degrees, sometimes precipitously, but always completely. In The Logic of Delegation, however, D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins persuasively argue that political scientists have paid far too much attention to what congressional parties can't do. The authors draw on economic and management theory to demonstrate that the effectiveness of delegation is determined not by how much authority is delegated but rather by how well it is delegated. In the context of the appropriations process, the authors show how congressional parties employ committees, subcommittees, and executive agencies to accomplish policy goals. This innovative study will force a complete rethinking of classic issues in American politics: the "autonomy" of congressional committees; the reality of runaway federal bureaucracy; and the supposed dominance of the presidency in legislative-executive relations.

The federal budget impacts American policies both at home and abroad, and recent concern over the exploding budgetary deficit has experts calling our nation's policies "unsustainable" and "system-dooming." As the deficit continues to grow, will America be fully able to fund its priorities, such as an effective military and looking after its aging population? In this third edition of his classic book The Federal Budget, Allen Schick examines how surpluses projected during the final years of the Clinton presidency turned into oversized deficits under George W. Bush. In his detailed analysis of the politics and practices surrounding the federal budget, Schick addresses issues such as the collapse of the congressional budgetary process and the threat posed by the termination of discretionary spending caps. This edition updates and expands his assessment of the long-term budgetary outlook, and it concludes with a look at how the nation's deficit will affect America now and in the future. "A clear explanation of the federal budget... [Allen Schick] has captured the politics of federal budgeting from the original lofty goals to the stark realities of today."—Pete V. Domenici, U.S. Senate