In the United States, the size and composition of the federal budget is arguably the most important single issue of the 1990s, yet most debates and commentaries on the subject are largely uninformed. Most people are distressed at the enormous size of the federal deficit and perplexed because highly touted plans and agreements to bring the deficit down result in an even higher deficit. This book comprises a series of essays about the federal budget - how and why it has grown so large, why most 'deficit reduction' measures are either shams or predestined to fail and why understanding budget issues is so difficult. The authors offer a new perspective, a microbudgeting approach, which requires examining in detail how the federal government makes its budget decisions. Individual essays focus on the changing Congressional budget processes since World War II, origins, uses and abuses of budget baselines and the myth of Reagan's budget reductions.
- ISBN10 0804720924
- ISBN13 9780804720922
- Publish Date June 1994 (first published 1 May 1994)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 11 December 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Stanford University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 220
- Language English