Congress and the Budget; a Planner's Criticism

A criticism of the procedure which results in appropriations acts must proceed from some premises regarding the function of Congress and the nature and use of the budget process. This criticism is based on the assumption that it is not the function of Congress to govern, but instead: (1) to indicate wants, (2) to institutionalize the giving or withholding of consent, (3) to bring political conflicts toward resolution, (4) to provide a forum for the formation and expression of public opinion, and (5) to act as a court of final review in which the actions of the government may be scrutinized, controlled, and checked. All of these functions are thought of as being performed in the broadest policy sphere, the application of policy to particular matters being left to the executive branch. The whole function of Congress, so conceived, is to make value judgments in matters of widest concern.Budgeting is commonly regarded as a method of setting down, item by item, the estimated component costs of an undertaking in order to arrive at an estimated total cost. At the same time, budgeting is also used as a technique for securing managerial control over expenditures; by requiring that funds be spent according to a budget, it is possible, if the budget is sufficiently itemized, to control the spender in minutest detail. While these uses of budgetary procedure are by no means excluded, it is the premise of this paper that the primary purpose of budgeting ought to be to achieve the most desirable allocation of funds among alternative uses, and over time.