TITLE:
Public Budgetary Process
AUTHORS:
Robb Shawe
KEYWORDS:
Budget, Public Policy Process, U.S.A
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.13 No.5,
May
24,
2023
ABSTRACT: An
analytic framework is proposed to assess budgets across a series of dimensions,
including whether it instills aggregate fiscal discipline, facilitates strategic
prioritization of expenditures, and encourages effective and efficient use of budgeted resources, offering budgetary
stability. The process should be transparent and timely and support
public awareness and participation. This framework evaluated the U.S. budget,
considering both areas of systematic inefficiency while reviewing the history
of budget reforms. When fiscal policies and medium-term budgetary objectives
are debated in Congress, budget strategies and policies are “owned” more
widely. However, more active participation by the legislature runs the risk
that fiscal discipline deteriorates. In addition, ethical codes within public
budgeting demonstrate the need for a professional ethic that fosters an
expanded sense of role responsibility. The report asserts that responsible
budgeting decisions must be tied to understanding how administrative activities
affect collective welfare. Instead, priority setting in the federal bureaucracy
resembles the market situation of nineteenth-century capitalism where
aggressive “policy entrepreneurs”, unequal in talent and resources, struggle to
build and sustain support for their programs.
Finally, the competition between policies is both reflected in and
promoted by the budgetary process.