ABSTRACT
Budgeting has become the great issue of our time. In the last twenty years as a sign of dissensus (or fundamental disagreement) every relationship in budgeting has been radically transformed. Once upon a time budgeters agreed on the old norms of balance, comprehensiveness, and annual review. Balance meant not only that revenue would be within hailing distance of expenditures but also that everyone acknowledged a limit on acceptable taxation so that they knew what total spending could add up to. With budgeting becoming equivalent to governing, while dissensus makes it difficult to do either, the aims of recent budgetary reforms come into clearer focus. The balanced-budget amendment, which limits federal spending to the last year times the increase in GNP, aims to restore by formal action what was previously accomplished by the informal workings of budgetary norms.
