The Rationale for Federal Involvement -- Program Scoring, Justification, and Other Issues -- Questions for Chapter 10 -- Discussion Items for Chapter 10 -- Appendix: Federal Credit and Insurance Program Summary -- 11. The Budget and the Economy: Each Affects the Other -- The Economy's Effect on the Budget -- The Budget's Effect on the Economy -- Standardized vs. Cyclical Budget -- Issues-Did the Stimulus Measures do their Job? -- The Business Cycle vs. the Political Cycle -- Conclusions -- Questions for Chapter 11 -- Discussion Item for Chapter 11 -- 12. The Budget and Government Performance: Will Making the Government more Efficient Save Lots of Money? -- "The Budget and Government Performance" Comprises several Discrete Issues -- Some Historical Background -- The Challenges Facing Congress and the Executive Branch -- The Bottom Line -- Question for Chapter 12 -- Discussion Items for Chapter 12 -- 13. Federalism and the Budget: Washington and the States: the 1 Trillion Puzzle -- Federal Assistance-some Historical Context -- Federal Assistance Today -- The Federal Budget's Impact outside Washington Extends beyond Intergovernmental Assistance -- Using Intergovernmental Assistance to Help Achieve Federal Goals -- Unfunded Mandates -- Preemption-What's that All About? -- The Bottom Line -- Questions for Chapter 13 -- Discussion Items for Chapter 13 -- 14. Controlling the Budget in a Partisan Environment -- What is the Problem with the Budget? -- The Short-term Budget Dilemma -- The Long-term Budget Dilemma -- Efforts to Balance the Budget-a Review -- The Budget Control Act of 2011 and the Breakdown of the Budget Process -- The Bottom Line -- Discussion Items for Chapter 14 -- Appendix: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security: What are They? -- Notes -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2 -- Bibliography -- Index.

From history of the budget process to detail about the ongoing conflict in Washington, from charts explaining where every federal dollar goes to simple explanations of budget terminology, this book covers it all. A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget is for every American who wants to understand and participate in a process that affects all of us. It serves as a foundation for the novice reader, a reference tool for a more advanced audience, and is perfect for high school and college classroom use. Released to coincide with the fiscal year 2013 budget process and the 2012 presidential election, this guide includes up-to-the-minute numbers and explanation of President Obama’s 2013 budget request.

The federal budget impacts American policies both at home and abroad, and recent concern over the exploding budgetary deficit has experts calling our nation's policies "unsustainable" and "system-dooming." As the deficit continues to grow, will America be fully able to fund its priorities, such as an effective military and looking after its aging population? In this third edition of his classic book The Federal Budget, Allen Schick examines how surpluses projected during the final years of the Clinton presidency turned into oversized deficits under George W. Bush. In his detailed analysis of the politics and practices surrounding the federal budget, Schick addresses issues such as the collapse of the congressional budgetary process and the threat posed by the termination of discretionary spending caps. This edition updates and expands his assessment of the long-term budgetary outlook, and it concludes with a look at how the nation's deficit will affect America now and in the future. "A clear explanation of the federal budget... [Allen Schick] has captured the politics of federal budgeting from the original lofty goals to the stark realities of today."—Pete V. Domenici, U.S. Senate

Consists of various reprints from the Congressional Research Service including: Introduction to the Federal budget process by Robert Keith and various publications on the budget process by Bill Heniff and others.

Presents a narrative analysis of the federal budget that reveals how funds were actually spent in 2011, evaluating the roles of such contributors as Jacob Lew, Douglas Elmendorf, and Pete Peterson.

Budgets in the United States follow rules of presentation and use terms that make sense to few outside the world of government finance. Moreover, practices vary widely among the thousands of governments in the country, between federal, state, and local levels. Understanding Government Budgets offers detailed explanations of each of the different types of information found in budgets, featuring annotated examples from both state and local budgets, as well as the budget of the federal government. It stresses that the choices made about format and organization influence the story a budget tells about government. The goal of the book is to make the format of budgets and the information they contain accessible and understandable, helping users make better sense of government and its performance. Perfect for undergraduate or graduate level courses in budgeting and public administration, Understanding Government Budgets also makes a useful guide to budgets for the average citizen with an interest in how government operates or journalists writing about it.

The U.S. Department of Defense accounts for over half of federal government discretionary spending and over 3% of GDP. Half of all federal employees work for the Department. The annual budget for the military not only provides for those salaries, it covers the baseline and wartime operating expenses of the force, and hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in new capabilities and technologies. Given the materiality of the defense function and amount of resources it consumes, the processes for budgeting for defense and managing the funds is important to understand. This text provides a fully integrated view of defense budgeting. It takes the position that defense budgeting is a specific instance of public budgeting, and public budgeting is a specific instance of public policy. In order to fully understand how the nation budgets for defense, it first lays a theoretical and conceptual foundation for public policy and public budgeting. That is followed by an assessment of the political and policy context for defense, including the overarching federal budget process and role of Congress in setting defense policy. Only then does the text explore the specifics of defense budgeting: how, by whom, and why the budget is crafted. Beyond the topic of budgeting – formulating, requesting, and legitimating the request for funds – the book tackles financial management topics. Included are discussions of federal appropriations law, funds management, accounting requirements, intragovernmental business transactions, and contemporary topics of defense policy such as funding overseas contingency operations in an era of deficit control legislation. This book is an appropriate reference for both students and practitioners of defense budgeting and financial management. It would also be appropriate in a general public budgeting course. Most public budgeting texts focus on state and municipal governments and there are few that address the federal system. This book fills that gap and provides a specific example of federal budgeting.

Traditionally, economics training in public finances has focused more on tax than public expenditure issues, and within expenditure, more on policy considerations than the more mundane matters of public expenditure management. For many years, the IMF's Public Expenditure Management Division has answered specific questions raised by fiscal economists on such missions. Based on this experience, these guidelines arose from the need to provide a general overview of the principles and practices observed in three key aspects of public expenditure management: budget preparation, budget execution, and cash planning. For each aspect of public expenditure management, the guidelines identify separately the differing practices in four groups of countries - the francophone systems, the Commonwealth systems, Latin America, and those in the transition economies. Edited by Barry H. Potter and Jack Diamond, this publication is intended for a general fiscal, or a general budget, advisor interested in the macroeconomic dimension of public expenditure management.