The Development of the Budget Idea in the United States

• Author: A.E. Buck
• DOI: 10.1177/000271622411300106
• Published date: 01 May 1924
• Date: 01 May 1924
• Subject Matter: Articles

31

The

Development

of

the

Budget

Idea

in

the

United

States

BY

A.

E.

BUCK

New

York

Bureau

of

Municipal

Research

TWENTY

years

ago

very

little

at-

tention

was

given

to

the

budget

idea

in

this

country

outside

of

academic

circles.

Political

leaders

were

not

in-

terested

in

the

idea;

people

generally

knew

nothing

about

it.

Only

a

few

persons,

here

and

there,

had

caught

the

significance

of

Gladstone’s

statement:

&dquo; Budgets

are

not

merely

affairs

of

arith-

metic,

but

in

a

thousand

ways

go

to

the

root

of

prosperity

of

individuals,

the

re-

lation

of

classes,

and

the

strength

of

king-

doms.&dquo;

Our

cities

were

spending

money,

some

thousands,

some

millions

of

dollars

annually,

with

little

or

no

thought

as

to

where

it

was

coming

from

or

what

they

were

getting

for

it.

The

states

were &dquo;getting

by&dquo;

financially

in

even

more

haphazard

fashion

than

many

of

the

cities.

The

national

Gov-

ernment

was

in

the

heyday

of

the &dquo;pork

barrel&dquo;

era.

So

great

was

the

general

apathy

in

those

days

toward

the

subject

of

gov-

ernmental

finances,

that

newspaper

men

did

not

regard

financial

events

as

having

any

news

value.

When

a

New

York

editor

was

asked

to

make his

paper

the

medium

for

telling

the

people

about

the

city

budget,

he

replied:

&dquo; It

can’t

be

done.

We

do

not

make

news;

we

print

news.&dquo;

Perhaps

the

editor

was

right;

but

things

have

changed

since

then.

When

President

Coolidge

sent

his

budget

to

Congress

on

December

10,

1923,

newspapers

all

over

the

country

carried

front

page

news

articles

about

it.

Many

of

them

commented

editori-

ally

on

the

President’s

budget

plan

for

expenditures

and

the

reduction

of

tax-

ation.

Some

papers

reproduced

cer-

tain

graphs

and

tables

from

the

budget.

The

President’s

budget

message

seemed

in

many

ways

to

overshadow

his

gen-

eral

message

to

Congress.

Similar

publicity,

though

perhaps

not

so

strik-

ing,

has

recently

been

given

to

the

budgets

of

a

number

of

states

and

cities.

Need

we

look

for

further

evi-

dence

that

things

have

changed?

HOW

THE

BUDGET

IDEA

SPREAD

IN

THIS

COUNTRY

How

has

this

change

been

brought

about?

At

first

a

few

earnest

individ-

uals

began

talking

about

the

need

for

systematic

planning

in

the

financing

of

government.

They

pointed

to

the

advantages

of

budget

making

in

the

European

countries.

They

explained

the

essentials

of

a

good

budget,

and

they

outlined

budgetary

procedure

as

applied

to

our

system

of

government.

Soon

other

individuals

got

interested

in

the

budget

idea

and

began

talking

about

it.

Then,

as

the

burden

of

local

governments

began

to

be

felt,

civic

bodies

took

up

the

idea.

Bureaus

of

municipal

research

were

organized

to

study

the

financial

needs,

the

organi-

zation

and

methods

of

city

govern-

ments.

The

oldest

one

of

these,

the

New

York

Bureau

of

Municipal

Re-

search,

began

immediately

after

it

was

organized

in

1906

to

study

the

budget

needs

of

the

city

of

New

York.

Among

its

first

reports

was

one

on

&dquo;Making

a

Municipal

Budget,&dquo;

pub-

lished

in

1907.

The

introductory

sentence

of

this

report

ran

as

follows:

&dquo;No

document

can

tell

in

such

con-

densed

form

so

many

significant

facts

about

community

needs

and

govern-