Budgeting Prior to the Classical Term Paper

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.. discretion as a practical matter" (1988, p. 78).

Wildavsky's was not critical of classical budgeting theory. He was more in favor of the concept of incrementalism that was a vital part of classical budgeting. He felt that incrementalism was superior to other budgeting approaches because it "increases agreement among the participants" (1984, p. 136) and also because it could reduce "burden of calculation" (1984, p. 136). Wildavsky went on to say that: "Clinging to last year's agreements is enormously economical of critical resources . . . which would be seriously depleted if all or most past agreements were reexamined yearly." (1984, p. 217).

The classical budgeting model proved efficient and practical for many decades but it lost its appeal in mid-20th century when a general trend towards excessive spending took over. This trend was observed all over the world and the main reason for the scope of government's responsibilities that had increased significantly after the two World Wars. Budgets began growing to alarming proportions and between 1965 and 1984 it grew 20 points in OECD countries. But revenues were not growing at the same rate. This was the case in the U.S. too where at the beginning of 1980s, federal budget was found "relatively uncontrollable" (Schick 1990). Social welfare measures had also had a serious impact on spending. These programs which began during the Johnson era were greatly expanded in 1970s thus causing serious burden on the budget. While an attempt to control these expenditures was made still by 1980s, Social Security as well as Medicare and Medicaid programs which had been started in 1965 consumed 6% of the GDP. Along with these, government was also unwilling to reduce domestic expenditure.

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During 1970s, Reagan refused to cut defense spending which went to a record high during his presidency.

Incrementalism failed to provide a sound theoretical framework in these conditions. The yearly model was widely accepted but the behaviors that were required to go with it were largely ignored and thus incrementalism was considered useless (Schick 1980, 22 -- 24). By 1970s incrementalism was completely discarded as budgets continued to grow excessively.

Another major shift was noticed in the annularity concept. Though budgets are to be developed on year to year basis, there has yet to be a year in which Congress followed this rule completely. Congress has often violated this rule by delaying appropriations. Roy Meyers notes: "Late appropriations have been routine for decades" (Meyers 1997, 26) The trend was highly noticeable in 1960s when most of the appropriation were delayed. In 1977 this tardy behavior improved only when the beginning of fiscal year was postponed. Another important development that shattered the annularity feature was the sudden and unexplained shut-downs of government departments. This led to serious delays, throwing the entire system into disarray and causing problems for employees. These types of shut-downs were unheard of before 1980s but between 1981 and 1985 alone, federal agencies were shut-down six times. Similar behavior was witnessed in 1995-1996 during the famous Gingrich-Clinton conflict. (Meyers, 1997)

These were some of the major changes that occurred in 1960s and later that accounted for the change in budgeting model. Classical budgeting couldn't possibly survive in these conditions and thus it was quickly replaced by other budgeting models as.....

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