Closing OTA: Transition in the 104th Congress

The 1994 mid-term congressional elections resulted in a sweeping change in leadership of the 104th Congress. An ambitious Contract with America agenda included proposals for substantial reductions in federal spending, and singled out OTA, by far the smallest of the Congressional support agencies, for elimination as conveniently symbolic. While OTA built up considerable support from both sides of the aisle for its relatively narrow mission in the grand scope of Congress, the lack of a mission fully integrated with a well-established congressional process, a limited constituency among the rank and file members of Congress, a zero-sum game for operating budgets among the legislative branch support agencies at a time of deep budget cutting, and the convenience of being able to claim closure of an entire federal agency while sacrificing less than one percent of the Legislative Branch budget all together presented a perfect storm of forces that OTA and its supporters could not weather. OTA suspended operations in the fall of 1995, although the legislation authorizing the agency was never repealed.