ABSTRACT
By an impressive margin, the Federal Government spends more money, does more things, and affects more people than it did twenty-five, or even ten, years ago. But the record of innovation and expansion has not been uniform; rather the prosperity of individual programs has varied widely during this period. Some programs have continuously prospered, grown and evidently become permanent fixtures in the governmental system: NDEA student loans, research in high-energy physics, Social Security, and most recently health care. Others seem to have thrived only temporarily: aircraft nuclear propulsion, manned space flight, and the “Green Berets”; while still others have an uneven history of success and failure and are constantly involved in political turmoil: AID, Model Cities, and the Atomic Energy Commission’s “Plowshare” program.
