Article ID: | iaor200440 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 15 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 275 |
End Page Number: | 308 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2003 |
Journal: | Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management |
Authors: | Boatright Robert G. |
Keywords: | management, planning, government, politics |
Biennial budgeting and appropriations cycles have been a popular idea among many members of Congress for the past twenty years. Despite widespread bipartisan support for biennial budgeting in the 1980s, the first House vote on the subject, in 2000, resulted in a norrow defeat for biennial budgeting. This article analyzes the merits of biennial budgeting and the reasons for its defeat, arguing that during the 1990s biennial budgeting lost its sense of urgency because of the erasure of the federal deficit and became a more partisan issue than it previously had been.