Budgeting Rules and Program Outcomes

• Date: 01 September 2018
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Author: Stuart Kasdin
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12908

Budgeting Rules and Program Outcomes 759

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 5, pp. 759–771. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12908.

Stuart Kasdin is mayor pro tempore of

the City of Goleta, California.

E-mail: skasdin1@gmail.com

Budgeting Rules and Program Outcomes

Abstract: It is not efficient for a budget system either to enable excessively frequent changes in programs and tax

policies or to be rigid and unresponsive. Program durability is one measure of how a budget system weighs the

competing goals of resoluteness and responsiveness. The federal budget has different processes—mandatory and

discretionary spending and tax expenditures—each based in separate congressional committees and relying on

separate procedures. This article examines the budget systems’ durability. One finding is that mandatory spending

programs and tax expenditures are more durable than programs backed by discretionary spending. However, while

programs targeted to vulnerable populations and supporting long-term planning, such as in income support and

health, might benefit from durability, these programs display shorter durability, not longer. While displaying greater

durability, tax expenditures do respond to changes in different economic sectors, based on the changes in spending of

other budget systems.

Evidence for Practice

• Programs that rely on mandatory spending are more durable than those backed by discretionary

spending, and tax expenditures show greater durability than either of the other types of spending.

Durability matters because it is an indicator of a budget system’s trade-off between resoluteness and

responsiveness.

• Discretionary budget systems are potentially more responsive to current needs, while tax expenditures allow

recipients of existing tax expenditures greater assurance that the programs will persist.

• Contrar y to the idea that programs targeted to vulnerable populations require more durability, we find

evidence that programs associated with income support and health, started after 1976, display shorter

durability, not longer.

• Rationally designed budget institutions would enable longer-term research to continue without uncertainty

for future funding; however, we find that science programs display less program durability.

• Because tax expenditures are isolated from other types of programs, there is reason to expect that they would

be unresponsive to changes in mandatory and discretionary spending in a sector. Instead, we find that tax

expenditure programs do respond to changes in other parts of the budget.

Stuart Kasdin

City of Goleta, California

A

good budget process is not chaotic. People

who are planning for retirement want stable

Social Security and Medicare programs.

Businesses making investments expect predictable

federal tax policies. Corporations conducting long-

term research want consistent federal programs for

planning their research programs.

On the other hand, when a budget locks in funding to

ongoing programs and policies, it becomes less flexible

and less able to respond to emergent priorities. For

example, in the wake of technological changes in the

economy, analysts might recommend new job training

and workforce programs. A budget system should be

nimble enough to offer new programs in response

to emergent priorities and, conversely, capable of

terminating programs that no longer reflect current

needs. Thus, there is a trade-off between resoluteness

and responsiveness in a budget system.

This article examines program durability as an

indicator of the emphasis a budget system places on

resoluteness or responsiveness. Budget processes with

fewer program terminations pre-commit more funds.

Conversely, in budget systems with shorter program

durability, programs are available to target current

priorities.

While numerous authors have demonstrated the

regularity and predictability of programmatic

terminations (Berry, Burden, and Howell 2010; Corder

2004; Haselswerdt 2014), not to mention the risks of

Research Article