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

Abstract

As we are moving into the terminal phase of World War II, it is inevitable—and entirely proper—that we allow our thoughts to wander ahead in an initial exploration of the matters on our national postwar agenda. Many of these matters relate to ends and center on policy alternatives. Others focus primarily on means and involve questions of approach. The latter include problems of governmental structure and machinery within the framework of our political system. Such problems present themselves in both the legislative and executive departments. With respect to the executive branch, we must seek to evolve an appropriate organizational form that will enable the federal government to sustain effectively an economy of high-level production and employment. In this effort we are confronted in part with a task of constructive innovation, in part with the need for reëxamination of prewar working hypotheses and wartime experience. It would be a promising venture to return to the work of the President's Committee on Administrative Management and appraise its proposals in the light of later developments. In any such enterprise, attention must doubtless be given to one conception closely associated with the recommendations of the President's Committee: that of the Executive Office of the President.