THE NATION'S BUDGET AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S BUDGET*

• Date: 01 September 1952
• Author: Grover William Ensley
• Published date: 01 September 1952
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1952.tb00102.x

THE NATION'S BUDGET AND THE FEDERAL

GOVERNMENT'S BUDGET*

GROVER WILLIAM ENSLEY

Joint

Committee

on the

Economic

Report

Congress

of

the

United

States

THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S policies

have

profound

implica-

tions for

the national

economy

is a recognized

fact

today.

The eco-

nomic

and political

environment

of the

past

decade

and

a half,

with

its

challenge

to public

policy,

has made

it

necessary

to

relate

activi-

ties of

the

federal

government

to

those

of

the other

parts

of the

na-

tional

economy.

The accuracy

and

scope

of

economic

data

have

im-

proved

greatly

in

recent

years,

permitting

more

satisfactory

quanti-

tative measurements

of the results

of

policies.

The use

of these

data

in

federal

programming

has been,

however,

largely

piecemeal.

There

is a need

to

develop

tools

for using

economic

data in determining

pollcies.

The purpose

of

this study,

therefore,

is to

explore

this

need

and

to develop

a technique

for

using

general

economic

information

in

over-all

federal policy

formulation.

A

budget

for the

nation is

offered

as a tool

for

synthesizing

data

for

purposes

of

federal

policy-making.

Such

an

endeavor calls

for

broadening

the

concept

of

budgeting

and

for

recognizing

the

place

of the budget

in

expressing

programs.

BUDGETS AND ECONOMIC POLICY

Budgeting

is considered

the process

of

reconciling

scarce

means

and

substantially

unlimited

human

wants.

It includes

choices

both

as

to

means

and as to ends.

A

budget

has

developed

as a tool for ex-

pressing

programs

for

accomplishing

objectives-expressing

means

to

ends.

More

recently

the

budget

has

begun

to be used

in

govern-

ment as a tool

for determining

certain

types

of economic

policy,

namely,

fiscal

policy.

It is believed

that

a budget

can be made

an

instrument

for determining,

as well

as for

expressing,

all aspects

of

individual,

business,

and government

economic

policy.

Techniques

for

using

economic

data

must

be developed,

however,

before

this

ob-

jective

may

be satisfactorily

realized.

THE NATION'S BUDGET AND ECONOMIC POLICY

The writer suggests

the

use

of a nation's

budget

to relate

economic

data for

purposes

of improving

the

means

by which

the nation

* A doctoral

dissertation

completed

at New York

University.

483