Politics & Budgeting “Shaking The Money Tree”

2 Public Budgeting  Reform origins  Process  Executive budget  Budget cycle  Technique (Budget as a set of tools & methods managers use to enhance their agency’s efficiency & effectiveness)  Politics

3 Politics & Budgeting  Totally different from traditional, technique ‑ oriented, approaches to public budgeting  Rooted in the “behavioral revolution” which swept post WWII American social science  Began with Aaron Wildavsky, THE POLITICS OF THE BUDGETARY PROCESS

4 Politics & Budgeting: Two Components  Descriptive - how budgeting is “really done”  Normative - how budgeting should be done

5 Politics & Budgeting: Descriptive  Managers do not engage in extensive studies, calculations, etc. when deciding how much to request/approve  Managers do use “aids to calculation” when deciding how much to request/approve

6 Descriptive, cont.  Managers do engage in explicitly political (not necessarily partisan) maneuvering, or strategies, to enhance the likelihood that their agency’s requests are favorably received by decision makers

7 Aids To Calculation  Experience: get an activity started, then make adjustments  Simplify: use simple indicators in lieu of complex notions  Satisficing: find a “good enough” solution, then stop worrying  Incrementalism: focus on changes to last year’s budget, not on the entire request

8 Incrementalism: Two Key Concepts & An Assumption  Two Key Concepts  Fair Share: an agency can expect to receive (roughly) the same % of the government’s total budgetary outlays from year to year  Base: an agency can expect that its programs will be carried on at roughly their current level  The Assumption  All other things being equal

9 Incrementalism: Implications  Budgetary fights take place over changes to fair share &/or base, not over total size of request  Major transformations may occur, but they take place over a long period of time

10 Strategies: Shaking the Money Tree  Ubiquitous: found everywhere & at all times  Contingent: used to defend &/or expand base, thus are used only under particular circumstances

11 Ubiquitous Strategies  Clienteles: find, serve, expand, secure feedback from, etc.  Develop good political “antennae”  Advisory committees  Avoid “capture”  Be aware of fads, spending &/or cutting moods

12 Ubiquitous Strategies, cont.  Build & maintain good relationships with legislature  Staff  Deference  Honesty  Responsiveness

13 Contingent Strategies: Defensive  What: Protecting the base budget  Examples  Cut the popular program  “You choose”  Alter form  Shift blame

14 Defensive Strategies, cont.  More examples  All or nothing  Cut less visible programs (legislators like to do this!)  And many others

15 Contingent Strategies: Offensive  What: “Growing” The Base Budget  Examples  “Old stuff”  Rounding  “Look ma, no hands”  Aim high, take less

16 Offensive Strategies, cont.  More examples  Spend to save  Profit  Crisis, national defense, etc.  Temporary programs  The “camel’s nose” (the wedge)  And many others

17 Politics & Budgeting: Normative  Managers should use aids to calculation & political strategies  Human beings have only limited rationality  Public budgeting takes place in an explicitly democratic political context. Overly focusing on the rational management approach can facilitate the growth of an overly-powerful, unresponsive bureaucracy.

18 Politics & Budgeting: Normative  But, the critics respond  Efficient & effective government is also in the public interest  Wildavsky & his followers focus too much on a narrow set of evidence  Changing times  Better training, techniques  Politicization comes & goes