Why are there defense authorizations and appropriations?

The budgeting that Wildavsky, Caiden, and other scholars defined as “traditional” was designed to finance bureaus that provide a service to the public or, more generally, perform some government function: policing, fire fighting, collecting taxes, medical research, space exploration, or whatever. In all these cases, the government establishes some set of goals and then provides a bureaucracy to pursue those ends. Government has not committed itself legally to a precise level of services. Rather, it has promised to provide a bureaucracy that it is to be hoped will provide an acceptable level.

 

… The traditional questions of budget control are questions about bureau performance and direction. Will the bureau use the money properly? Will Congress, the president, or the bureau’s officials control the program?

 

Within Congress, budgeting for bureaus has long been treated as a process separate from the normal policy-making routines. Without such a distinction, there would be no point to having appropriations committees separate from the authorizing, legislative committees. The division of labor between the authorizations and appropriations processes is, of course, hotly contested at the margins (Fisher, 1979; Rubin, 1988; White, 1993b).

“Entitlement budgeting vs. bureau budgeting.” White, Joseph. Public Administration Review; Vol. 58, Iss. 6,  (Nov/Dec 1998): 510-521. Let’s get back to bureau budgeting. Entitlement budgeting is perhaps a better name than program budgeting or PPBE, because once authorized, the manager is entitled to that multi-year budget regardless of performance.