ABSTRACT
The budget process of the US government has evolved over about sixty years, periodically adding new layers of complexity. Insofar as it involves the executive branch, the system is quite similar to the Japanese style of preparing budgets. To understand the role of Congress in the federal budgetary process, it is necessary to know something about how the executive branch prepares the budget proposals that are submitted to Congress every year. The rising inflation rate also put pressure on Congress to adopt a balanced budget. The Senate and House budget committees, just beginning to prepare the tentative congressional budget, felt that strong measures would be necessary to force the rest of Congress to accept spending cuts. The preparation of the fiscal 1981 budget was marked by a series of policy reversals and innovative procedures, all designed to cope with an erratic economy that resisted the best efforts of federal policy makers.
