Adversarial Budgeting Case Study

1. A myriad of variables have contributed to an adversarial budgeting process between the President and Congress. Until such factors have been addressed, the budget process will remain a contentious procedure that generates inefficient fiscal policy

Budgeting is considered a thermometer of presidential and Congressional relations. The framers of the Constitution expected Congress to have the largest say in the budgeting decisions. If the president proposes measures that Congress can accept, the legislators get to share the blame. If Congress rejects a presidential proposal so much, it replaces it with another, legislators can gain credit from the interest they protect. The presidential gain policy influences from initiative and agenda setting

The first condition for cooperation was that Congress and the President have similar goals for the budget totals. Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans have very different fiscal policy views. Conservative coalitions agreed largely with Eisenhower in 1950s. Unfortunately, their disagreement only became systematic when President Nixon faced a more liberal Congress. At this point, the fact that only the President had economists and a projecting fiscal totals became a problem for Congress. The second condition was the instrument available within budget process be adequate to the task of making details fit the totals. The process that had emerged only guaranteed action on annually appropriate programs, this will later be called discretionary spending. The 1960s growth of entitlements reduced spending flexibility in the traditional spending process. The growth of entitlement such as Social Security and Medicare followed by military spending’s decline as the Vietnam war wound down, meant that by the 1973 annual appropriations were less than half, and a decline sharing of spending. The third condition was that the president and congressional majority be in rough agreement on programs details or priorities. This disagreement appeared to have widened during the Nixon presidency. The fourth condition was that the apportionment power be used in a way that was remotely acceptable to Congress. President Nixon used it to impound appropriation for purposes that he did not approve and had not been because another, culminational crisis over budget power was avoided only because another culminating in Nixon resignation took