States are the key to contemporary government reform efforts in the United States, but we know very little about their relative effectiveness at resource allocation and their actual capacity to absorb additional fiscal and managerial responsibilities. This path-breaking study examines state budget offices as institutional actors, with special attentio to the role of budget examiners. Drawing on empirical findings from field studies of eleven states in the American heartland, the authors demonstrate how budgeting at the state level has become more policy-oriented, requiring complex decision making by budget analysts. The incrementalist model of budgetary decision-making thus gives way to a multiple rationalities model. The authors illustrate the decision-making model with the story of two office examiners who have distinctly different orientations as they begin their work, and contrast the different decision nationalities that come into play for them at different points in a typical budget cycle. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography of historical and modern writings on state budgeting operations, activities, and decision-making; state budgeting cycles; and the state-level policy development process.

Some of the best writings on public budgeting and finance can be found in the journals that ASPA publishes or sponsors. For this volume editor Irene Rubin has brought together the best of these articles - emerging classics that address the most important theoretical and practical problems underlying public budgeting.The anthology is organized topically rather than historically, with an effort to delineate the issues needed to understand some of the more recent controversies in the field. Rubin's introductory essay and section openers frame the key issues and provide historical context for each article. The collection begins with descriptions of what public budgeting is, where it comes from, and what it is for. It moves on to the relationship between budget processes and outcomes, constraints on budgeting, the legal context in which it operates, and adaptations to those constraints such as contracting out.The book concludes with a discussion of the ethics and norms that underlie budgeting in a democracy. Throughout the anthology, the emphasis is on areas of disagreement and debate, so students can get involved and explore different viewpoints.

Budgeting is a central activity in state government, and annual or biennial appropriations are the most important recurring decisions made by state legislatures. Gubernatorial recommendations reflect state agency program needs and portray the policy priorities of the chief executive. Legislative appropriations determine which agency programs, gubernatorial policy initiatives and legislative constituencies receive financial support. Budget execution decisions by state agencies determine how the policy decisions of the governor and legislature are actually implemented. In short, state budgeting determines how much money will be available for state spending, which policies will be initiated and implemented, and whose social and political values will prevail in state governance.

When the first edition of Why Budgets Matter was published in 2003, the federal budget had fallen back into deficit. At the time, fairly modest changes in taxes and spending would have ensured that deficits and debt would remain at tolerable levels. Instead, the disconnect between taxes and spending that had plagued the United States since the 1960s grew even greater. A near-catastrophic economic collapse beginning in December 2007 then magnified the fiscal consequences of irresponsible policy choices. This new edition examines how and why the balanced-budget equilibrium of the 1990s was destabilized in the 2000s. It also places this latest partisan battle over the size of government in historical perspective by exploring its connection to earlier budget policy eras.

First Published in 1992. The federal budget has attained unparalleled significance at the heart of American politics in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The modern budget system has become the mechanism by which a distinctively American administrative state was put in place and made operative. The growth of the administrative state has transformed politics in America, but many Americans are unaware of its existence. This study looks at budget control within the realms of Congress, the Presidency and the development of the Administrative State.

This analysis of budgetary systems and policies across the world examines how politics, culture, and economics influence public finance.