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Bases of Budgetary Incrementalism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John Wanat
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky

Abstract

This essay analyses the explanatory power of Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky's theory of budgetary incrementalism. By means of sensitivity testing, it demonstrates that inferences to “gaming” or strategic explanations of budgetary incrementalism are not warranted on the basis of correlational analysis.

To explain budgetary incrementalism more satisfactorily, recourse is made to concepts and variables explicit in the vocabulary of the budget process participants. When mandatory requests are distinguished from programmatic requests, the differential treatment of the two by Congress is observed to allow good explanation of budgetary relations. In particular, the inexorable but small mandatory request, which is almost automatically granted, is adequate by itself to explain why requests always increase and why one year's appropriation surpasses the previous one.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 Lindblom, Charles E., “The Science of ‘Muddling Through,’Public Administration Review, 19 (Spring, 1959), 7988CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Fenno, Richard, The Power of the Purse (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), pp. 267, 354, 356Google Scholar; Sharkansky, Ira, “Agency Requests, Gubernatorial Support, and Budget Success in State Legislatures,” American Political Science Review, 62 (December, 1968), p. 1223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crecine, John P., Governmental Problem-Solving (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969), pp. 206208Google Scholar; Davis, O. A., Dempster, M. A. H., and Wildavsky, Aaron, “On the Process of Budgeting: An Empirical Study of Congressional Appropriation,” in Tullock, Gordon, ed., Papers on Non-market Decision-Making (Charlottesville, Va.: Thomas Jefferson Center for Political Economy, 1966), pp. 102123Google Scholar.

3 Davis, O. A., Dempster, M. A. H., and Wildavsky, Aaron, “A Theory of the Budgetary Process,” American Political Science Review, 60 (September, 1966), 530531CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 542.

5 Ibid., p. 532.

7 Ibid., p. 534.

8 Ibid., p. 536.

9 Ibid., p. 537.

10 For a good discussion of the use of sensitivity analysis, see Grant, L. V., “Aspects of Theory Evaluation,” British Journal of Political Science, 3 (January, 1973), 101110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Consistency of simulation output and actual data is one of two criteria Crecine suggests for evaluating a simulation model. See his Governmental Problem-Solving, pp. 111–114, 143–145.

12 Similarity of decision mechanisms between those in the real world and those of the model is another criterion suggested to evaluate a simulation model. See Crecine, , Governmental Problem-Solving, pp. 111–114, 143145Google Scholar. See also Cyert, Richard M. and March, James G., A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 317Google Scholar.

13 It is very curious that with all the qualitative evidence presented by Wildavsky, by Fenno, and by Sharkansky about the concept of the base, Davis, I Dempster, and Wildavsky's operationalization of the budget relations did not utilize that concept. Consider the basic agency equation, REQUESTt, = γ APPROPRIATIONt-1, + ρ. This means that the request, which we know consists of the accepted base plus the desired increase, is “equated” to a percentage of the base appropriation. This makes the decisionable increase a function of the already accepted base and thereby muddles concepts the qualitative literature holds to be distinct. The same kind of criticism can be made of the congressional decision equations.

14 “The justification of each appropriation or fund account will begin with a statement relating the estimate to past and current year requirements. This statement will follow the form of exhibit 24 …” Exhibit 24 is titled “Analysis of Changes in Requirements.” Executive Office of the President, Bureau of the Budget, “Preparation and Submission of Annual Budget Estimates,” Circular No. A-11, June 1970, p. 27.

15 Actually a fourfold distinction can theoretically be made. The Budget Bureau in Circular No. A-11 of June 1970, Section 24.2, says that increases requested over the budget authority of last year should be categorized as program increases, automatic increases (equivalent to our mandatory category), financing increases (“Activities financed by another program or agency in the preceding year.”), and administration commitments (“Program increases to which the president has publicly and specifically committed the Administration.”). In the data used in this study no administration commitments were spelled out, and only rarely was a financing increase found. For all practical purposes, therefore, the mandatory/programmatic distinction is all that applied.

16 U.S., Congress, House, Appropriations Committee, “House Report 92–374,” p. 4Google Scholar.

17 U.S., Congress, House, Appropriations Committee, “House Report 91–1310,” p. 7Google Scholar.

18 U.S., Congress, House, Committee, “House Report 91–391,” p. 7Google Scholar.

19 U.S., Congress, House, Committee, “House Report 90–1575,” p. 7Google Scholar.

20 U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee, “Senate Report 90–1484.” p. 3Google Scholar.

21 U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee, “Senate Report 90–469,” p. 6Google Scholar.

22 U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee, “Senate Report 91–610,” p. 13Google Scholar.

23 Financing increases were combined with mandatory increases. I felt that this class of increases did not exhibit clear programmatic content but was “imposed” on the agencies and thus was closer to mandatory increases. Furthermore, since there were few such increases, where they were classified would have little impact on analysis.

24 Fenno, pp. 266–274 and Wildavsky, Aaron, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), pp. 1831Google Scholar.

25 “A Simulation of Municipal Budgeting: The Impact of Problem Environment,” in Coplin, William, Simulation in the Study of Politics (Chicago: Markham, 1968), pp. 119–122, 136–139, 144Google Scholar and “Defense Budgeting: Organizational Adaptation to Environmental Constraints,” in Byrne, R. F., Charnes, A., Cooper, W. W., Davis, O. A., and Gilford, Dorothy, Studies in Budgeting (Amsterdam and London: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1971), pp. 218–222, 227235Google Scholar.

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