Politics By Formula: Leah Rosenstiel
Join us on October 16 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Leah Rosenstiel, PhD, to discuss her new book Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities.
Register for this virtual presentation here.
Roughly $1 trillion of the US federal budget is distributed annually through grants-in-aid to state and local governments rather than individuals, heavily impacting local public service quality. While these funding formulas seem impartial and based on objective needs like population or poverty, Leah Rosenstiel’s Politics by Formula reveals they are deeply distorted by political institutions. Congressional committee leaders deliberately design these formulas to favor their own constituencies. Neutral formulas shield these political choices from public scrutiny while simultaneously constraining lawmakers, ultimately driving geographic inequalities and determining whose needs are prioritized across states.
Leah Rosenstiel is assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. A central interest of her work is understanding how politics affects the distribution of federal funding and the design of government assistance programs. Some of this research appears in my book, Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities, published by the