ABSTRACT
Public budgeting is intrinsically political. Budgeting is necessarily political for numerous reasons. The demand for public projects and programs always exceeds the supply of dollars, so there is always choice involved in any budget. Someone's request will be honored; someone else's will be cut back, ignored, or delayed into future budget years. Some degree of prioritization must take place, even when revenues are relatively plentiful, which means a process must be in place to make those allocation decisions, criteria must be used to make those decisions, and decision makers are going to have influence on those decisions. Similarly, taxes and fees must be collected to pay for public services, which means that decisions must be made about how that burden will be distributed, that is, on whom the burden will fall. Decisions on spending and taxing can be made more openly, with more public participation, or more secretly, between governmental and nongovermental elites with little accountability to the public. In a democracy, the budget is a prime tool for public accountability. In that role, the budget process may function well or poorly.
