Expenditures

Expenditures: The Politics of Choice

The amount of revenue brought into a government is never sufficient to meet the demands for room in the budget by all parties, so choices must be made. Often basing on top down policy preferences, those in control of the budget must make decisions on what to cut, trim and fully fund in the budget. Sometimes however it is not clearly policy guided and issues such as political clout, technical grounds, or even the environment can steer decisions.

With the limit in revenue and the obvious desire for all agency heads to receive as much funding as possible, competition begins to play a large role in vying for a bigger piece of the budget. There are three major competitive strategies used, all which must stay cautious of the fiscal and political environment at all times. The first is the idea of climbing the priority list. Making your program seem more urgent now or not simply more appealing but far more necessary than other proposals or even having a symbolic output. Another strategy is making your proposal seem cheap or even free. By saying it is an investment, like medical research, gives the notion of future value added. Other concepts include presenting it as paying for itself, using grant money, or having a greater future cost if not enacted now. Cost effective proposals almost always tend to get farther. The third strategy is to mobilize support. Through discussions with executives, legislators and the public, you can seem to align your proposal with the policy of the executives. Broadening the constituencies effected is also widely practiced. Unfortunately, where ideas originate can be lost along the way and lobby groups or politicians can gain support for pork projects.

Sometimes however agency heads need to favor a budgeting strategy that reducing relying on highly contended budget dollars. By earmarking their own revenue by setting up fees instead of tax dollars or becoming independent of an overhead agency, it is possible to maneuver around the budget restrictions. Certain top-down strategies also are used. Structuring your program to make it untouchable or longterm can remove the need to fight as much for budget space. Entitlements, public enterprises like the postal services, and trust funds are set up like this. Locking in policy priorities also occurs by creating a recipient pools, requiring set formula allocations, and setting up spending referendums and amendments guiding spending all to establish long term budget plans that fit to a certain fiscal policy. Broadening support is always important for helping to reduce your need to be