ABSTRACT
This chapter examines responses of legislative and executive officials to presidential decisions. The bureaucracy is a crucial, even dominant, actor in implementation that author covers both budget and program responses. The chapter focuses expectations on presidents' legislative success and support generally, by individual presidents and political party, and by target group and subissue, after which some assessments of legislative responses are made. It presents congressional appropriations in constant dollars and then offers a more direct comparison of presidential-congressional relations by showing the difference between presidential budget requests and the amount appropriated by Congress. The chapter shows that agencies themselves have considerable, perhaps inordinate, control over their own expenditures and programs. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush were conservative, pushing to limit agency implementation. The chapter assesses whether presidents have succeeded in obtaining their brand of implementation in civil rights policy. It shows activities that were relatively common to all agencies. The chapter helps to measure what the agency actually did.
