Waste, weapons, and resolve: Defense posture and politics in the defense budget

Abstract

The defense budget poses many problems to the student of budgetary behavior and its ever-changing structure makes it difficult to identify patterns and trends in allocation. This study examines defense budget requests from the Eisenhower through the Reagan administrations. An analysis of changes in allocation to the 54 appropriation categories suggests that the defense budget responds to new doctrines and management introduced by each administration. Shifts in allocation among the services are greatest in the first two budgets of an administration and reversals of previous program priorities also occur early in each administration. After three or four budget requests, year-to-year continuity in allocation to "winners" and "losers" finally begins to emerge. Two other findings also shed light on the politics of defense budgeting. First, the degree of variation in allocation is least when the defense budget increase is large. Second, low presidential popularity leads to less variation. The identification of such trends should permit future budget requests to be evaluated in the context of the long-term evolution of defense politics.The United States defense budget presents several special problems for the student of budgeting. No other organization consists of four so very competitive, parochial, yet overlapping personnel services with frequently redundant tasks (for a short organizational history see Jones, 1982). In most respects, it would be difficult to identify a functionally integral department among this constellation of organizations were it not for the annual budget process that unifies the civilian and military agencies into a single federal department. It might be recalled that in 1947 its creators first named it the National Military Establishment, a title befitting such a loose alliance of actors in search of the ambiguous goal of"security." Since then, much has been done to reform and coordinate actions (the name was changed after two years), but, in the end, the 0032-2687/84/$03.00 9 1984 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

Public Financial Information Management for Benefits Maximization

“…Incremental model tends to rely on three points: simple decision in case of complexity, stable and specific budgetary roles, and stable and consensual budgetary bargaining (Meyers, 1994). However, in certain cases of decision-making, instable environments or policy shifts contribute to large nonincremental changes (Domke, 1984;Schulman, 1975;Rubin, 1990a;True, 2000;True, Jones, & Baumgartner, 1999;Meyers, 1994). In order to deal with the nonincremental chances, decision makers have to examine all budget programs in comprehensive manners.…”

O orçamento de defesa dos EUA: racionalidade X pressões domésticas

“…A representatividade eleitoral é relevante porque tomadores de decisão pertencentes a distritos eleitorais com grandes investimentos em defesa tendem a apoiar maiores gastos. Já os grupos de interesse, no sistema político dos EUA, têm grande intensidade (Goldstein 1999) e capacidade organizacional (Olson 1999;Smith 1996;Domke 1984) . Por isso, a norma atribui extensas vantagens ao Congresso no processo decisório.…”

“…Isso claramente ocorre nos debates do orçamento de defesa, pois o lobby das indústrias de armamentos é considerado um dos mais fortes do cenário político estadunidense (Smith 1996;Gholz e Sapolski 1999-2000Domke 1984). A relação simbiótica entre os grupos de pressão da indústria de defesa, os congressistas e os membros das Forças Armadas, conhecida como Triângulo de Ferro (Smith 1996), é o principal instrumento político desenvolvido pela indústria, cuja força pode ser medida pela sua riqueza e pelos resultados financeiros positivos que vêm obtendo ao longo dos anos (Cobb 1969).…”