The Budget Enforcement Act in 1991: Isometric Budgeting

The immediate effect of the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) of 1990 was to cancel a pending $110 billion sequester and to change the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit targets. These and other changes allowed Congress and the administration to escape responsibility for increases in the deficit if discretionary spending was kept within the caps and no new entitlement programs or revenue enhancements were added. This assumption and others relating to the empowerment of the Appropriations Committees and the new authority of the OMB are explored in this article.     

Do Politicians Listen to Experts? The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 and The Capacity to Budget

Last year offered a unique opportunity to compare the ideas of experts and politicians. The 1990 Budget Enforcement Act changed the federal budget process. Allen Schick's 1990 book, The Capacity to Budget, included ideas on how to improve budgeting at the federal level. A comparison is made between the new law and the new ideas in several areas of the budgetary process: deficit reduction; resource rationing; adjustment to changing expenditures; increasing budget honesty; decreasing conflict; rou-tinizing the process; integrating the parts of the budget; and balancing claims and resources.     

The Budget Enforcement Act and Its Survival: Congress Hears from Experts

The unpopularity of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 grew in light of the recession, recent international events, and continuing record budget deficits. This prompted many Congress members and congressional committees to consider the future of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. Two hearings, held in October and November of 1991, exemplify the kinds of choices facing the Congress and the type of advice that Congress has been receiving. This article reviews the testimony given at the hearings by experts with established knowledge of federal budgeting.     

An Overview of Adjustments to the Budget Enforcement Act Discretionary Spending Caps

This article reviews the adjustments that have been made to the limits on discretionary federal spending that were enacted as part of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. Each type of adjustment authorized by that act is described, and the actual adjustments made by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget are discussed. Tables that display the amounts and timing of the adjustments are used to support the narrative. The article also discusses the relationship of cap adjustments to changes in the federal budget deficit.     

The President's FY 1990 Budget: The Last Act in a Decade of Change

This article examines the budget requests of Presidents Reagan and Bush for fiscal year 1990, and how the federal budget has changed during the decade of the 1980s. The author concludes that the federal budget has become less controllable, as the priorities and composition of federal expenditures have shifted during the Reagan years. While the Reagan and Bush budgets do not differ significantly, the manner in which they were constructed does. The effort of President Bush to define his budgetary version of a "kinder, gentler" America may be more illusory than real. The author also traces the change in federal assistance to state and local governments, concluding that, apart from transfer payments, the federal role has markedly declined.     

Zero Base Budgeting: The Manager's Budget

This article offers an assessment of zero-base budgeting (ZBB) derived from a field study conducted by the Urban Institute and supported by the National Science Foundation. Four cities and four states participated in the study, and several hundred public officials were interviewed.     

Budgeting for Accountability: Municipal Budgeting for the 1990s

The emphasis of a public budget depends on the time and circumstances in which it is developed. During the 1990s, for example, the emphasis has increasingly been on accountability due to widespread public belief in recent years that government is uncontrollable and responds only to special interests. Over the past few years, local budgeters have begun to adapt to this new environment by improving the accountability of the budget to the public. This article summarizes some of the changes taking place and suggests some additional changes that could be adopted to make local budgeting more accountable.     

From Performance Budgeting to Performance Budget Management: Theory and Practice

This article examines the decades‐long practices of performance budgeting in different countries and their associated challenges from a multilayered institutional framework. Based on theory and lessons learned, the article recommends an array of strategies to address institutional and organizational barriers. It also proposes to reconceptualize performance budgeting as a performance budget management system and suggests how multiyear budget planning, financial risk assessment, policy planning, the departmental budget cycle, the program budget cycle, stakeholder engagement, regular spending reviews, and performance audits should be integrated more closely to address the long‐term fiscal challenges faced by many governments and to respond to the public pressure on agencies to do more with less.     

Performance-Based Budgeting to Enhance Implementation of the CFO Act

On August 5, 1992 the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs passed the "Government Performance and Results Act" sponsored by Senators Roth and John Glenn. In introducing this legislation in 1991 Senator Roth made the following statement. ^* This legislation (S. 20) is intended to put teeth into federal efforts to introduce performance measurement currently under implementation by the Office of Management and Budget under the authority of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990.     

The 1990 Budget Package: Redefining the Debate

The debate of budgeting issues in the 1980s culminated in a dramatic change in 1990—the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The negotiations leading to this agreement considered the status of the deficit and the philosophical shift from "no new taxes" to "fair taxes." It led to changes in direct spending, enforcement of budget targets, timing of the budget, sequesters usage, tax increases, and entitlement reforms.     

Perceptions on Federal Budget Reforms: Public Budgeting Researchers' View

This study examines budget experts' perceptions on suggested federal budget reforms. Based on the response of a group of selected public budgeting professors (N = 46), the study identifies several specific reforms that are supported by the experts from both the viability and adoptability consideration. The study also reveals the fact that the respondents are less optimistic about the adoptability of the suggested reforms even though they generally agree with most of the reforms. Addressing the federal deficit problem, the authors further discuss the implication of the experts' perceptions on federal budget reforms.     

The Voting Rights Act and Louisiana: Twenty Years of Enforcement

This article examines the interaction of structural change (lawsaffecting voting rights) and cultural continuities (differencesbetween the Protestant and black Catholic political cultures)on the level and quality of black political participation inLouisiana. Blacks who at mid-century resided in the French-Catholicparishes were more likely to register and vote than blacks wholived outside these parishes. The advent of the Voting RightsAct has radically changed this pattern. Northern parishes havingthe highest proportion of black population, the highest landtenancy rates, and a tradition of a plantation economy are nowamong the parishes exhibiting the highest rates of black voterregistration.     

Rules and Flexibility in Public Budgeting: The Case of Budget Modernisation in Australia

This paper explores the features of public budgeting that make it resistant to efforts to balance central oversight and situational flexibility. Its aim is to help explain why systemic efforts at budget modernisation in the name of ‘devolution’ may have failed to deliver expanded budget flexibility. After defining flexibility, and briefly surveying how it can be inhibited by budget practices using the example of collaboration, the paper applies a taxonomy of general ‘budget rules’ to illustrate the trade‐offs between control and flexibility. It uses an analysis of budget reform in the Australian federal government over the last 30 years to identify a key set of ‘legacy reforms’ – all intended primarily to enable budget flexibility – to show how their design and redesign were purposed as modification to the general rules, and how, ultimately, they were constrained by them.     

Performance Measurement in State Budgeting: Advancement and Backsliding from 1990 to 1995

Performance measurement has been one of the dominant themes of budget reform in the 1990s and has been prevalent in the mainstream of budgeting since the 1950s. Given the attention that performance measurement has had nationally, states might be expected to have made major strides in this arena in recent years. The article considers the current status of performance measurement practices, and identifies both advancement and backsliding made by states between 1990 and 1995. The discussion is based on data obtained from surveys of state budget offices in those two years. Indexes of performance measurement were constructed, and these became the bases of regression analyses using independent variables pertaining to state characteristics. Generally, these analyses were unsuccessful in explaining the variations among the states. The findings underscore the diversity among the states in their budgetary practices and the fact that budget reform, in the sense of increased use of performance measurement, is not necessarily achieved in a straight line of progression. The article considers possible explanations for the changes.     

The Reiterative Nature of Budget Reform: Is There Anything New in Federal Budgeting?

This article will attempt to demonstrate the limitations of budget reforms to bring about fundamental change in budget outcomes. In an effort to determine the extent to which these reforms have had any lasting effect, the author first discusses the history of federal budgeting since the advent of the executive budget in 1921. Second, the author reviews three reforms that are prominent in the U.S. Congress current budget debate—enacting fixed budget targets, granting the president increased power in the budget process through enacting a line item veto, or implementing a performance-based budget. Lastly, the author will cite the limitations of each to bring about lasting changes in budget outcomes or decision processes.     

The Use of Program Analysis in State Budgeting: Changes between 1990 and 1995

Reform literature has long championed the notion that program analysis should be utilized in budgetary decision making. This article reveals that, although the 1990s may have shown renewed interest in this line of reform nationally, a noticeable decline seems to have occurred in the conduct and use of program analysis by states. The article examines other changes in the period from 1990 to 1995, compares different executive-branch units with one another in their involvement with program analysis, and considers possible relationships between executive and legislative use of analysis Few linkages are found between the characteristics of states and their use of program analysis. The article concludes with a discussion of possible explanations for the changes between 1990 and 1995 and the implications of those changes.