ABSTRACT
Moderates endorsed Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, legislation of spite and mutual terrorism, that made fraud the only responsible form of budgeting. The Politics of the Budgetary Process, like The Deficit and the Public Interest, critiques an extreme, yet centrist, view of budgeting. That view demands that budgeting meet a standard of rationality that could never be approached by any system involving so many facts and so many persons’ values. The chapter discusses Aaron Wildavsky’s first response to demands for budgeting perfection: his elaboration of the concept of incremental ism within the context of budgeting. A pattern of incremental results, therefore, can exist without any belief that it was a good thing. Nonincremental proposals are a bad investment of precious political time and capital. The distinction can be manipulated in battles for power. But also like politics and administration, the distinction between policymaking and budgeting is necessary for government to proceed.
