US Government Budget Formulation

Author: Research Team on Budget Preparation of Foreign Governments
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-10-01
Features: This book proposes several conditions for modern budget preparation:
First, it is a plan for future government expenditures, not a post-event report.
Second, it is a unified plan that includes all government departments and expenditures.
Third, it is a detailed plan that lists all project expenditures and categorizes them.
Fourth, each item in the plan must be justified to distinguish priorities in spending.
Fifth, this plan must be binding on government actions—unlisted items cannot be spent, and allocated funds cannot be ( means "diverted for other uses").
Sixth, this plan must be approved by the legislative body and subject to its oversight.
Seventh, for the sake of public supervision, the budget content and process must be transparent.
It can be said that after decades of development, the U.S. government budget preparation has reached a high level of modernization. In addition to the developments mentioned above, there have been some recent breakthroughs in recent years, such as emphasizing performance evaluation in government budgets. Budgets are no longer solely focused on the openness and transparency of allocation, legal constraints, but have also begun to emphasize effectiveness.