Contemplating the Congressional Budget Process
CONTEMPLATING THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET PROCESS Government is aptly compared to architecture; if the superstructure is too heavy for the foundation the building totters, though assisted by outward props of art.1 When the subject of the Congressional budget process arises a common and usually mildly exasperated complaint is often heard: “It is so complex.” The adjective “complex” is usually paired with other adjectives, sometimes adverbs, like “overly”2, “cumbersome”,3 “tedious,”4 “incoherent,”5 or “endlessly.”6 Even “maddeningly”7 has been used, though when this last has been employed, it has been unclear whether the meaning is that it incites anger or causes an impairment of cerebral functioning. The truth of the characterization is manifest: The current budget process system is, in fact, complex, but that, in itself, is not a flaw, fatal or otherwise. Many things are complex: Microcomputers, theoretical mathematics, Hegelianism and Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology all may be characterized as such. Even the primary governing document of the American Nation, the U.S. Constitution, is purposefully complex in its construction. In answering a query as to why 1 Though this quote is attributed to Benjamin Franklin from an article published in The Pennsylvania Gazette in April 1737, John Webbe has also been named as its author. Webbe was an essayist and publisher who was Franklin’s contemporary. The sentiment is valuable no matter who held the pen. See The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1960, vol. 2, pp. 145–146. 2 Brian M. Riedl , “What’s Wrong with the Federal Budget Process”; Backgrounder #1816 on Federal Budget, The Heritage Foundation, January 25, 2005.
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