ABSTRACT
Public budgeting has changed enormously over time, with implications for both practitioners and academics. This chapter describes major issues and trends that have occurred since 1921 Budget and Accounting Act, outlines budget reforms that must occur to keep pace with these changes. One of the major changes in budgeting has been the addition of different kinds of programs that do not have characteristics of traditional budgeting, including entitlements, tax expenditures, grants, loans, loan guarantees, insurance, and equity shares. The public and interest groups are a real and ongoing part of public budgeting, especially perhaps at national and state levels. Incorporating citizen goals into budget planning can be helpful in curtailing the level of conflict between citizen and government over budget issues. The integration of policy and budgeting means that training new budgeters needs to include more policy analysis, more ability to project and to specify the assumptions underlying those projections, and more ability to work with fuzzy or spongy numbers.
