The “Proper Organs” for Presidential Representation: A Fresh Look at the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921

Abstract

Abstract:The presidency is now thought of as a representative institution. I argue that the idea of presidential representation, the claim that presidents represent the whole nation, influenced the political development of the institutional presidency. Specifically, I show that the idea was the assumption behind creating a national budget system in the United States. While the challenge of World War I debt prompted Congress to pass the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the law’s design owes much to reformers’ arguments that the president lacked institutional tools to fulfill his representative role. Congress institutionalized presidential representation in budgeting by including two key components: a formal license for presidential agenda setting in the budget process and an enhanced executive organizational capacity with the Bureau of the Budget. However, the law also revealed the problems raised by attempting to provide the “proper organs” for presidential representation, which push against the written constitutional frame.

Tools of Control? Comparing Congressional and Presidential Performance Management Reforms

“…While Moe's definition incorporates a broad framing of bureaucratic power and action, there is little doubt that performance management reforms fit within his definition. While Moe's (1989) basic logic about the institutional tools wielded by presidents and Congress is generally in line with other writings on the executive branch (for an overview and partial critique, see Dearborn 2019 andLewis 2008), we argue that the inferences he draws do not hold, at least for the performance management reforms we study. As noted, Moe sees the trade-offs in legislative horse-trading as inherently limiting, relegating technical rationality in favor of political rationality because legislative incentives are to respond to narrow stakeholders rather than make bureaucracies run well for the public as a whole.…”

Conflict over Congressional Reapportionment: The Deadlock of the 1920s

“…John A. Dearborn has argued that the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 "was the first instance in which Congress passed a law that relied upon the idea of presidential representation as its core design assumption"-that is, the idea that the President represents the national interest. 14 This assumption is a given in the 2020s, as scholars studying the presidency routinely incorporate the idea of presidential, national representation into their first-order assumptions about presidential motivations. 15 The rise of congressional delegation to the executive branch in the 1920s and its pervasiveness today thus allows us to better understand the alternatives the Congress of the 1920s faced.…”

Organizational design and its consequences for administrative reform: Historical lessons from the U.S. Budget and Accounting Act of 1921

“…Problems centered on structural incompatibility between independent agencies and presidential accountability were the basis for the bold recommendation emanating from the Brownlow Committee Report that independent agencies be converted into executive departments (President's Committee on Administrative Management, , pp. 31, 40, 53; see also Dearborn, , pp. 7–10).…”