Congressional Trends to Tax and Spend: Examining Fiscal Voting Across Time and Chamber

This note presents data on Congressional fiscal policy by party and chamber, using the National Taxpayers Union annual vote index for 1979-2002. NTU scores are presented with and without adjusting for interchamber and intertemporal movements of the policy space over which the scores are calculated. Results indicate that the parties and chambers are much more stable over time, and exhibit a slighter liberal trend, when accounting for movements in the policy space. The adjusted scores also indicate less change during fiscal milestones.