As Irene Rubin has shown convincingly in past editions, public budgeting is inherently political. Short-term partisan goals overrun long-term public interest and democratic processes, eroding institutional and public capacity to address collective problems. By presenting federal, state, and local budgeting within a comparative framework, Rubin’s classic text gives explicit attention to issues of federalism, always sensitive to the power struggles between the different branches and levels of government. How much control is exerted from above and what degree of autonomy can be found at each level of government? What kind of influence do elected officials wield over government priorities? How do we resolve the tension between patronage, pork, and tax breaks necessary for reelection and the requirements of balance, technical efficiency, and prioritization?

Analyzing each strand of the decision-making process, Rubin shows the extraordinary coordination involved in passing a budget and achieving some level of accountability. By moving beyond the simplistic and rigid “executive proposal and legislative disposal” cycle other books follow, Rubin explores shifts in power over time and explains decisions that do not always flow in a linear fashion.

A thorough revision at every turn, updates include:


• the return to massive deficits at the federal level, requiring more attention on the relationship between budget process and outcomes
• the resurgence of secrecy in recent years, looking at how and why the level of transparency decreases at some times and increases at others the implications of 9/11, exploring the impact of funding wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• the difficulty of getting Inspectors General sufficient independence and cooperation to implement their work, showing how these officials are “straddling a barbed wire fence”
• over twenty new minicase studies

List of Tables, Figures, and Minicases

1. The Politics of Public Budgets
What Is Budgeting?
Governmental Budgeting
The Meaning of Politics in Public Budgeting
Budgetary Decision Making
Microbudgeting and Macrobudgeting
Summary and Conclusions

2. Revenue Politics
Raising Taxes
The Politics of Protection
The Politics of Reform
Summary and Conclusions

3. The Politics of Process
Budget Process and the Characteristics of Public Budgeting
Macro and Micro Politics
Designing Process to Achieve Policy and Political Goals
Variation between and among Federal, State, and Local Governments
Summary and Conclusions

4. The Dynamics of Changing Budget Processes
Overview
Major Changes in the Federal Budget Process
Changes in Budget Process at the State Level
Changes in Budget Process at the Local Level
Summary and Conclusions

5. Expenditures: The Politics of Choice
Strategies of Agency Heads or Program Directors
Top-Down Strategies
The Environment Can Affect Spending Priorities
Analysis: Accountability and Acceptability
Summary and Conclusions

6. The Politics of Balancing the Budget
Balance as a Constraint
Multiple Actors, Ideologies, and Deficits
The Environment, Unpredictability, and Deficits
Increasing Stress between Payer and Decider
The Politics of Deficits: The Federal Level
Deficits in the States
The Politics of Balance in Cities
Summary and Conclusions

7. Budget Execution: The Politics of Adaptation
Tools for Changing the Budget
Summary and Conclusions

8. Budget Implementation and Control
The Discretion-Abuse-Control Cycle
Discretion and Control: The Politics of Finding Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
Summary and Conclusions

9. Budgetary Decision Making and Politics
Real-Time Budgeting
A Comparison of the Decision-Making Streams
Common Themes
Reconceptualizing Reform
Avenues for Research
Summary and Conclusions

Index

“Irene Rubin excels in explaining how governments actually go about raising and spending public money. Through the masterful use of minicases, which are integrated into the text, The Politics of Public Budgeting spans federal, state, and local governments, introducing readers to key concepts and practices. This edition, like its predecessors, is learned and accessible. Rubin effortlessly weaves contemporary research into keen insights of how proposed reforms would affect budgetary behavior and outcomes.”

“Professor Rubin makes clear the nature of politics and administration in public budgeting at the local, state, and national levels. She offers academicians, practitioners, and students keen insight into the world of ‘real-time’ budgeting. As a municipal finance director for 17 years, I was especially intrigued by her perspicacious insight into how different budget strategies by various stakeholders, but particularly agency heads and program directors, can influence the level of competition, acceptability, and accountability of budgetary decisions.”

“Students and practitioners in public budgeting will welcome this valuable update of Rubin’s classic work—as close to a bible of budgetary politics and process as irreverent budgeteers would admit. This new edition retains a focus on the key stages of budgeting, valuable cases on budget controversies, instructive comparisons of budgetary politics across the levels of government, and the author’s incisive commentary and conclusions. In a field that is constantly changing with the economy and political tides, this update is itself a public good to teachers and students of public budgeting.”

“Irene Rubin has done it again. With more than twenty new cases, this lively updated edition belongs on the must-read list for practitioners, public officials, and academics. As with past versions, this new edition is the best choice for course adoption.”

“Irene Rubin’s book is nothing less than the best ‘field guide’ to budgeting in U.S. federal, state and local governments. It combines general descriptions and explanations of the essential elements of budgeting with finely-detailed examples of important cases.”

“From years of research and observation of the development of public budgeting, Rubin offers tremendous insights about the politics and complexity of the government budgetary process. The clarity in her writing and wide selection of interesting case studies make this an ideal text for students at all levels. The new edition also covers recent developments, including President Bush's Performance Assessment Rating Tool and state and local responses to fiscal stress, making this a must-read for all current and aspiring public officials.”

Irene S. Rubin is professor emeritus of political science in the division of public administration at Northern Illinois University. She is the author of a number of other books on public budgeting, including Balancing the Federal Budget: Trimming the Herds or Eating the Seed Corn?, Class, Tax and Power: Municipal Budgeting in the United States, and Shrinking the Federal Government. She edited the journal Public Budgeting and Finance for two years and Public Administration Review for three, and was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington in 1996.