Issues for 1951/52-1970/71 accompanied by an appendix (entitled 1951/52-1955/56, Obligations by objects and detail of personal services; 1956/57-1960/61, Detail of personal services; 1961/62, Detail of personal services and passenger motor vehicles and aircraft).

This book offers a systematic guide to the allocation of American taxpayer dollars used to provide for the common defense. With engaging and illustrative examples like the narrative of a helicopter purchase, it reveals an unexpectedly chaotic political process that produces a conversely stable aggregate defense budget. The book explores specific attempts to control or influence these turbulent funding outcomes as Congress reviews the Presidential budget request. Containing data and sources largely unavailable to researchers without access to the Department of Defense, the book should be of interest to anyone looking for a direct, current, and methodical analysis of defense budget outcomes that preserves the informal and nuanced mechanics of a political and complicated process.

First Published in 1992. The federal budget has attained unparalleled significance at the heart of American politics in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The modern budget system has become the mechanism by which a distinctively American administrative state was put in place and made operative. The growth of the administrative state has transformed politics in America, but many Americans are unaware of its existence. This study looks at budget control within the realms of Congress, the Presidency and the development of the Administrative State.

This paper discusses basic principles underlying budget law and reviews key features of budget legislation in several OECD countries as a basis for development of budget legislation in economies in transition to a market environment (EITs). It recommends a broad structure and a number of specific provisions that could be included in budget law for EITs.