Transparency....

Throughout the first half this weeks assigned reading in the Rubin text I could not help but focus on the issue of accountability and transparency of records. Legislation like Gramm-Rudman-Hollings unintentionally encouraged creative bookkeeping and after the 2002 expiration of the Budget Enforcement Act practices became less open yet again. With the utilization of Ad Hoc committee and creative scoring and rule changes that made deficits look smaller to justify policies and tax cuts. I think I am really just hung up about how publicly traded companies are now “held to higher standards of record keeping” than the government enforcing them. Through the Sarbanes Oxley Act that was passed in 2002 and signed by President G. W. Bush companies were held accountable for the accuracy and completeness of corporate financial reports. I see the exclusion of Defense Department from the budget although it received approximately 75 billion dollars in funding in 2005, which occurred under the same Bush Administration (Rubin, 119) that felt the need for people to trust financial records. Public budgets are public record of government finances but how much of the general public would be able to make sense of anything through thousands of pages of legislation and gimmicky accounting practices let alone trust it. Does this seem like a double standard to anyone else? States and local governments have moved more towards line item vetoes to truly invoke accountability as well encourage transparency. I guess that would make the national budget seem more trustworthy and less like things are being pushed under the rug. At the same time I understand that that’s a lot of Presidential power, and well we all read about how wonderfully Nixon used his power with the impounding. I may be comparing apples and oranges but it just seemed a little sketchy.

OMB

I incorrectly posted this as a comment to the Welcome post last weekend. Thought I would post it again after Lonce discussed the OMB last night. While reading the Wildavsky and Rubin assignments, I have taken some time to review the OMB website. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ In light of the text discussions regarding executive and legislative budgeting perspectives, I found it interesting to review the President’s FY 2010 transmittal letter and Terminations, Reductions and Savings plan. Rubin’s discussion about the “variety of actors” involved in budgeting makes you realize how monumental, and potentially unrealistic, this plan is.

Types of Budgets

The four types of budgets line-item budget, performance budget, program budget, and zero based budget, found in Rubin Chapter 3 page 82 are all distinct and serve different purposes. I think that many people like the idea of a line item budget because it is easy to discern what money is being spend on, there is no guessing. It makes accountability easy because an individual can point to specific expenditures. I have always thought of it as a way gain control when expenditures are seemingly out of control. However, the obvious negative aspect to this is that the top administrator has no say or leeway when it comes to making expenditures as Rubin points out. My view on this is that it inhibits the essential functions of that administrator because they cannot maximize potential of their assignment. I would think that this is a top role for that administrator.
The performance budget focuses on how well the money that was allocated last year was spent. This seems like a good idea but I have some reservations which I am not sure about. For instance, do they take into account the changes in economy, staffing, costs of goods, etc. from one year to the next. I think that if the budget is approached with those kinds of questions in mind, it could be a useful tool.
Lastly, Zero-based budgeting rates programs or services by their importance and funds those deemed to be the most important. I think that the positive aspect to this is that you can take care of most of the people's concerns with this because those most important programs are being taken care of. This is the best for the majority but someone is going to be left out or a program or service used by a few a minority of people is going to be dropped. However, I think that this program is where the cost cutting is at.