The Bureau of the Budget: Its Evolution and Present Rôle, II

Abstract

In the first part of this paper, an attempt was made to outline the frame of ideas which guided the founders of the national budget system, and to review the principal factors which have influenced the institutional development of the Bureau of the Budget since its establishment in 1921. The second part aims to give some account of the Bureau's current responsibilities and activities, including its working relationships with Congress and the various agencies of the executive branch.Perhaps the greatest merit of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 must be found in the stress it laid on the connection between budgeting and executive management. By directing the Bureau of the Budget to “correlate” the estimates of the federal agencies, the law linked fiscal planning with the coördinative responsibilities of the President. Correlation of estimates necessarily involves adjustment—not only of financial demands for different agency programs, but also of organizational form and mode of operations. Such adjustment cannot be decreed blindly. It requires administrative study and analysis. The Budget and Accounting Act rendered this inference explicit by designating the Bureau of the Budget to look into the structural and managerial problems of the executive branch as a continuing assignment. Up to 1939, the designation remained for the most part a mere notice of intent.