The Politics Of Public Budgeting

Using a "power struggles" theme to examine the dynamics of budgeting, The Politics of Public Budgeting shines a bright light on the political jockeying between interest groups, parties, officials, policymakers, and the public. Bestselling author Irene S. Rubin explains budgeting changes over time by setting issues like the federal deficit and health care expenditures in political and comparative context. The Ninth Edition offers students recent examples of public budgeting from all levels of government, emphasizing the relationship among them. Analyzing each strand of the decision-making process, Rubin shows the extraordinary coordination involved in passing a budget and achieving accountability.

This updated edition provides a discussion of budgeting at all levels of government in the US, and brings the reader up to date on the federal budget following the Budget Agreement of 1997. By describing change over time, it shows recent events in the context of institutional constraints, prior agreements, and political jockeying over process and outcomes.

As Rubin has shown in past editions, public budgeting is inherently political. By presenting federal, state, and local budgeting within a comparative framework, he gives attention to issues of federalism, always sensitive to the power struggles between the different branches and levels of government.

Public budgeting is inherently political. In The Politics of Public Budgeting, author Irene S. Rubin lays out the actors involved–interest groups, public officials, legislators, and the public–and shines a light on how these groups, who each have their own goals, are able to bargain and barter their way to a resolution. The new Eighth Edition examines the budgeting process over time and sets issues like the federal deficit and health care expenditures in political and comparative context. As in previous editions, the book also draws on examples from all levels of government and emphasizes the relationships among them. By carefully analyzing each strand of the decision-making process, Rubin shows the extraordinary cooperation involved in passing a budget and achieving accountability.

Some of the best writings on public budgeting and finance can be found in the journals that ASPA publishes or sponsors. For this volume editor Irene Rubin has brought together the best of these articles - emerging classics that address the most important theoretical and practical problems underlying public budgeting.The anthology is organized topically rather than historically, with an effort to delineate the issues needed to understand some of the more recent controversies in the field. Rubin's introductory essay and section openers frame the key issues and provide historical context for each article. The collection begins with descriptions of what public budgeting is, where it comes from, and what it is for. It moves on to the relationship between budget processes and outcomes, constraints on budgeting, the legal context in which it operates, and adaptations to those constraints such as contracting out.The book concludes with a discussion of the ethics and norms that underlie budgeting in a democracy. Throughout the anthology, the emphasis is on areas of disagreement and debate, so students can get involved and explore different viewpoints.

This analysis of budgetary systems and policies across the world examines how politics, culture, and economics influence public finance.

" Public money is perhaps the quintessential currency of influence for politicians and public servants inside government. It shapes how they undertake the nations business and it impacts on the standards of living in the country. The Politics of Public Money examines the extent to which the influence of players in the budgetary process is shifting from a bilateral relationship between departmental spenders and central guardians to a more complex multilateral relationship involving spenders and central guardians, as well as priority setters and financial watchdogs. David Good analyzes this shift of influence in terms of a broader societal change from an old village, conditioned by old norms of behaviour, to a new town that brings with it new ideas about how much public money should be spent, where it should be spent, and how it should be managed. To better understand the changing situation, Good develops a new framework for analyzing the politics and management of public money. This framework is used to explore the interactions among budget players and, perhaps the most central of all, the relationship between Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. As an analysis of the changing budgetary process and an examination of the promises and pitfalls of budgetary reform, The Politics of Public Money sheds new light on the role of insiders in influencing our governments spending. "