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The Bureau of the Budget: Its Evolution and Present Rôle, II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Fritz Morstein Marx
Fritz Morstein Marx
Affiliation:
Queens College
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Extract

In the first part of this paper, an attempt was made to outline the frame of ideas which guided the founders of the national budget system, and to review the principal factors which have influenced the institutional development of the Bureau of the Budget since its establishment in 1921. The second part aims to give some account of the Bureau's current responsibilities and activities, including its working relationships with Congress and the various agencies of the executive branch.

Perhaps the greatest merit of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 must be found in the stress it laid on the connection between budgeting and executive management. By directing the Bureau of the Budget to “correlate” the estimates of the federal agencies, the law linked fiscal planning with the coördinative responsibilities of the President. Correlation of estimates necessarily involves adjustment—not only of financial demands for different agency programs, but also of organizational form and mode of operations. Such adjustment cannot be decreed blindly. It requires administrative study and analysis. The Budget and Accounting Act rendered this inference explicit by designating the Bureau of the Budget to look into the structural and managerial problems of the executive branch as a continuing assignment. Up to 1939, the designation remained for the most part a mere notice of intent.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 39 , Issue 5 , October 1945 , pp. 869 - 898
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1945

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References

101 42 Stat. 20; 31 U. S. C. 11–16.

102 Sec. 207.

103 Sec. 209.

104 “The Future Organizational Pattern of the Executive Branch,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (1944), p. 1182.

105 Examples indicative of the range of such continuing duties are the congressional resolution of May 11, 1922 (42 Stat. 541; 44 U. S. C. 220), under which the use of appropriations available to federal agencies for the printing and binding of periodicals is subject to the budget director's approval; the act of March 26, 1934 (48 Stat. 466; 5 U. S. C. 118 c), as amended, under which be is authorized to make recommendations on foreign service pay adjustment “to meet losses sustained … due to the appreciation of foreign currencies in their relation to the American dollar …”; the Federal Reports Act of 1942 (56 Stat. 1078; 5. U. S. C. 139, note), which directs him to coördinate federal reporting and fact-gathering services; and the Overtime Pay Act of 1943 (Public Law No. 49, 78th Cong., 1st Sess.), which charged him with the duty of determining for each quarter the personnel requirements of the various agencies of the executive branch (subsequently placed on a more permanent basis under the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945, Public Law No. 106, 79th Cong., 1st Sess.).

106 “The Rôle of the Bureau of the Budget in Federal Administration,” address given at a joint meeting of the American Political Science Association and the American Society for Public Administration, Dec. 28, 1939.

107 On the budget process, see Smith, Harold D., “The Bureau of the Budget,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 1 (1941), pp. 109 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norman M. Pearson, “The Budget Bureau: From Routine Business to General Staff,” ibid., Vol. 3 (1943), pp. 126 ff.; Moe, Gustave A., “The Bureau of the Budget and Governmental Budgeting in Wartime,” National Association of Cost Accountants Bulletin, Vol. 25 (1943), pp. 48 ff.Google Scholar; Wilkie, Horace W., “Legal Basis for Increased Activities of the Federal Budget Bureau,” George Washington Law Review, Vol. 11 (1943), pp. 276 ff.Google Scholar; Rawson, Robert H., “The Formulation of the Federal Budget,” in Friedrich, Carl J. and Mason, Edward S. (eds.), Public Policy (Cambridge, 1941), pp. 78 ff.Google Scholar For the institutional and procedural context of the budget process, see Selko, Daniel T., The Federal Financial System (Washington, 1940).Google Scholar For constructively critical views on the budget process, see Kohler, E. L., “Expenditure Controls in the United States Government,” Accounting Review, Vol. 20 (1945), pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar; Key, V. O., “The Lack of a Budgetary Theory,” in this Review, Vol. 34 (1940), pp. 1137 ff.Google Scholar

108 Estimates for war agencies (military as well as civilian—the latter alone number 19) are submitted several months later. In the treatment of these estimates, limited adjustments of the regular procedure for reasons of both security and flexibility were considered appropriate. However, the adjustments neither touched upon the basic precepts of responsible budgeting nor led to the suspension of statutory requirements.

109 For an illustration of agency practice, see Lewis, Verne B., Budgetary Administration in the United States Department of Agriculture (Chicago, 1941).Google Scholar This department has distinguished itself through the pioneering efforts of its Director of Finance, William A. Jump.

110 The call for estimates specifically instructs the federal agencies to present workload data and operating standards in their budgetary justifications.

111 This is true even though hitherto such presidential policy statements have tended to be quite general, especially with respect to the “substance of governmental programs”; Pearson, loc. cit. in note 107 above, p. 133. One may perhaps assume that these statements will increase in specificity under a postwar policy of high-level employment, but it should be borne in mind that the activity structure of the executive branch, intertwined as it is with various interest formations which exert continual pressures, does not readily respond to modifications from the top. See Herring, Pendleton, “Executive-Legislative Responsibilities,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (1944), pp. 1153 ff.Google Scholar

112 These limitations are made still more acute when the budget officer is merely a formal appendage to the office of the agency head, or when the staff facilities at his command are under-developed.

113 A “boost” even from a single influential member of an Appropriations Committee may carry much weight.

114 Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that the Estimates Division shares its functional seniority with the Legislative Reference Division, which can trace its clearance responsibility with respect to legislative proposals presenting fiscal implications to Budget Circular No. 49 of Dec. 19, 1921.

115 The estimates of the legislative and judicial branches come to the Bureau for inclusion in the annual budget, but for obvious reasons are not subject to revision. The principle is one of law; Budget and Accounting Act (see note 101), sec. 201 (a).

116 Each assistant division chief is in charge of two or more groups.

117 The question might be raised whether the budget examiner's integrity of evaluation is likely to suffer from the continuing nature of his working relationships with an individual agency. Mr. Cannon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has recently claimed it as an advantage of the committee's practice of securing staff on temporary detail from the departments that the “constant change in operatives” means “new faces and new brooms”; Cong. Rec., Vol. 89 (1943), p. 10995. Considering the thorough knowledge of an agency required for proper analysis of its estimates, one can appreciate the preference which budget agencies entertain in favor of standing assignments.

118 In maintaining its program of recurrent examination of governmental activities, the Bureau must see to it that all its information is assembled, digested, and kept readily available in convenient and orderly form. To this end, it has developed a working tool known as the budget digest. It is a permanent, loose-leaf set of refer ence volumes amplifying and supporting the budget of each agency. The continual development of these digests, including revision of basic materials and posting of periodic data, is a task shared by all budget examiners.

119 For the war agencies (see note 108), hearings are scheduled later.

120 How far such inquiry and analysis can effectively be extended within the framework of the hearing is something of a moot question; see especially Kohler, loc. cit. in note 107 above. There are several reasons why the hearing is not easily transformed into a grand review of the agency's work program. Pressure of time is one of them. Another is the difficulty of projecting this work program so many months ahead, especially when the general development of conditions is highly dynamic or when legislative attitudes are subject to unpredictable shifts. Moreover, the agency's activity structure in the broader context of general policy is not always susceptible of explicit definition; see note 111. Finally, the character of the review approach of the Appropriations Committees exerts considerable influence on the administrative hearing. This approach has on the whole not been conducive to consistent evaluation of governmental programs; see Macmahon, Arthur W., “Congressional Oversight of Administration: The Power of the Purse,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 58 (1943), pp. 161 ff., 380 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

121 For instance, reorganizations or major management changes contemplated in the estimates are cleared with the Division of Administrative Management, statistical projects with the Division of Statistical Standards, and mapping or charting projects with the chief examiner for surveying and mapping. On the latter's program-making and coördinating responsibilities, see Executive Order No. 9094 of Mar. 10, 1942.

122 This committee serves the director only in an advisory capacity. Oral elaboration of the estimates is the responsibility of members of the hearing committees. At this closing stage in the tentative formulation of the executive budget, agency representatives are not present.

123 Agencies are sometimes more interested in the reasons underlying the President's decision than in the decision itself. One can imagine situations where an exact statement of the supporting reasons would be very difficult. Ordinarily, however, it should be easier. According to agency representatives, the Bureau has not always been successful in conveying these reasons; for an interesting illustration, see Hearings on the Navy Department Appropriation Bill for 1944, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. (1943), pp. 315 ff.

124 Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1183. See also Holcombe, Arthur N., “Over-All Financial Planning through the Bureau of the Budget,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 1 (1941), pp. 225 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Perhaps it need not be said that the work of the Fiscal Division is no substitute for that of the abolished National Resources Planning Board. Macmahon has legitimately raised the question “whether long-range studies which describe desirable objectives can be conducted in the absence of something like the former National Resources Planning Board”; loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1183.

125 Improvement of the form of the budget document is another field of Fiscal Division activity. There have been several desirable changes in recent years, but on the whole the budget document itself—in contrast With the budget message or the budget review issued by the Bureau shortly after the beginning of the new fiscal year—still presents a rather forbidding appearance. Because of innate complexities and the need for accommodating the preferences of the legislative branch, further progress is likely to occur only step by step. For some of the problems and issues involved, see Smith, Harold D., “The Budget as an Instrument of Legislative Control and Executive Management,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 4 (1944), pp. 181 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

It may be expected that under auspices of a policy of “full employment” both form and content of the annual budget will change considerably, especially through relating the government's budget to the “nation's budget.” A point of departure appears to have been established in the last budget message (January, 1945) and in the subsequent budget review, dated August 1, 1945.

126 As amended by Executive Order No. 9084 of March 3, 1942. On the purpose and content of Executive Order No. 8512, see the budget director's explanatory memorandum to the President as published in Cong. Rec., Vol. 88 (1942), pp. 1306 ff. See also Jones, J. Weldon, “The Execution of the Federal Budget,” Accounting Review, Vol. 17 (1942), pp. 88 ff.Google Scholar

127 As a supporting assignment, the Division of Administrative Management carries on a series of studies to promote improved budgetary administration by federal agencies.

128 Budget-Treasury Regulation No. 1 of June 28, 1941, as revised (June 1, 1942); No. 2 of June 30, 1942; No. 3 of September 1, 1944; No. 4 of September 15, 1944 (with Supplements Nos. 1 and 2 of September 30, 1944); No. 5 of December 31, 1944 (with Supplement No. 1 of March 31, 1945); and No. 6 of December 31, 1944. See also General Accounting Office Regulation No. 100 of October 4, 1943. The latter is not closely integrated with Budget-Treasury Regulation No. 1.

129 The Bureau's authority rests on the so-called anti-deficiency legislation (act of Mar. 3, 1905, as amended by act of Feb. 27, 1906–34 Stat. 48; 31 U. S. C. 665) and Executive Order No. 6166 of June 10, 1933. When the appropriation proves inadequate to the unfolding needs of the agency, a supplemental appropriation must be sought, estimates for which are processed like those for the annual budget. When it becomes evident in the course of the fiscal year that for unforeseeable reasons the agency's program does not require the full amounts appropriated by Congress, the Bureau customarily—and in harmony with the practice of most state budget agencies—places the funds not needed in reserve. This method of establishing reserves has recently attracted critical attention in some congressional quarters. On the other hand, see Second Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1944 (Public Law No. 375, 78th Cong., 2d Sess.), sec. 303.

Subsequent legislation has gone still further. Sec. 607 of the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945 (Public Law No. 106, 79th Cong., 1st Sess.) contains the first explicit statutory acknowledgment of the budget director's authority to reserve possible savings from expenditure. It is equally significant that this provision—in harmony with the doctrine incorporated in the Budget and Accounting Act—places the exercise of the budget director's reserve power “under such policies as the President may prescribe” (sec. 607 d).

130 Apportionments for war agencies (see note 108) are determined from quarter to quarter.

131 See note 128 above. In connection with its apportioning activity, the Estimates Division also reviews the internal allotment of funds by the various agencies.

132 For the legislative phase, see Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 120 above.

133 See note 105 above. The theory of this act was curiously at variance with the misgivings which of late have been voiced in Congress over the Bureau's traditional practice of establishing reserves in the execution of the budget; see note 129 above.

The overtime pay legislation has been put into more permanent form in the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945 (Public Law No. 106, 79th Cong., 1st Sess.). Under this law the budget director's authority has become continuing; the act has simultaneously clarified his relationship with the President in making personnel determinations.

134 Sec. 11. Under the act, additional compensation as authorized in accordance with the prolongation of the governmental work-week to 48 hours was automatically withheld for the employees of any agency unless its head certified within thirty days from the effective date prescribed by the budget director that the number of employees of the agency did not exceed the latter's determination; secs. 2 and 3.

135 See note 116 above. As is the case generally, their actions in this capacity are subject to review by the chief of the Estimates Division.

136 Sec. 209. Through the Administrative Management Division, the Bureau assists agencies in planning employee suggestion systems and programs for operation analysis specifically aimed at first-line supervisors; see Work Simplification as Exemplified by the Work Simplification Program of the U. S. Bureau of the Budget, Public Administration Service Publication No. 91 (Chicago, 1945); Marx, Fritz Morstein, “Looking at Under-All Management,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 4 (1944), pp. 368 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

137 Although the importance of “lines of command” and “administrative channels” should not be minimized, it must be borne in mind that these concepts contend in operating practice with substantial counter-influences; see notes 111 and 113 above.

138 Notwithstanding the existence of his Executive Office, the President, in his combined rôles as political leader and head of the administrative branch, would probably find it quite difficult to give his relationships with those in the inner circles around him a high degree of organizational form. On the case for “crystallization,” see Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 104, pp. 1184 ff.

139 This field, too, engaged the attention of the President's Committee on Administrative Management; see its Report with Special Studies (Washington, 1937), especially E. E. Witte's contribution to the subject. On the clearance work of the Bureau of the Budget, see the literature cited in note 107 above, especially Pearson, pp. 138–139.

140 Budget Circular No. 49 of December 19, 1921, in harmony with the objectives of sec. 206 of the Budget and Accounting Act, prescribed Bureau clearance of all legislative proposals originating in the departments or referred to them by Congress for comment or review in so far as these proposals might “create a charge upon the Public Treasury or commit the Government to obligations which would later require appropriation to meet them.” On the legal basis, see Wilkie, loc. cit. in note 107 above, pp. 271–272.

141 Reorganization Plan II of May 9, 1939, pt. 3, sec. 301, together with Executive Order No. 8248 of Sept. 8, 1939.

142 For some suggestion of the volume of business, see Smith, loc. cit. in note 107 above, p. 112.

143 Both its functions and its mode of operations may be called traditional; see note 114 above.

144 To quote the testimony of the chief of the Legislative Reference Division before the House Committee on the Civil Service, investigating civilian employment, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., Hearings, p. 367 (1943). It may be noted, however, that the budget director's advice to the agencies concerned ordinarily does not enter into reasons.

145 This point was stressed in the testimony referred to in the preceding note.

146 Since the President has only ten days, excluding Sundays, from the date of receipt at the White House within which to act on enrolled bills, these are accorded priority over other matters in the Bureau and all other federal agencies.

147 See Executive Order No. 7298 of Feb. 18, 1936. Proposed executive orders and proclamations are cleared to the President through the Department of Justice, which attends to the legal aspects.

148 Loc. cit. in note 144 above, p. 366.

149 Ibid. “Where the question is a difficult one and the Director has not talked with the President personally, we … ask what the President's desires are with respect to legislation.”

150 In response to the committee chairman's question, “… the President does not always follow the recommendations you make, does he?,” the witness answered, “No, sir.” Ibid.

151 In the words of Senator McKellar, acting chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the President “has the right to call on anybody he pleases, of course.” Hearings on the Independent Offices Appropriation Bill for 1945, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. (1944), p. 113.

152 As Senator McKellar put it rather liberally, “The Bureau of the Budget sits in on every activity of the Government these days—I do not think there is anything they miss ….” Ibid., pp. 112–113.

153 See note 105 above. The law incorporates basic recommendations made by the former Central Statistical Board, predecessor of the Bureau's Division of Statistical Standards.

154 As elaborated by Regulation A issued under the act.

155 Only a few agencies are exempted from the provisions of the Federal Reports Act, Internal Revenue forms representing the most important area exempted. For more specific discussion of this kind of clearance activity, see Rice, Stuart A., “The Rôle and Management of the Federal Statistical System,” in this Review, Vol. 34 (1940), pp. 481 ff.Google Scholar, and “Coördination of Federal Statistical Programs,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 50 (1944), pp. 22 ff.; Crowder, Edward T., “Centralized Internal Control of Data Collection by Federal Agencies,” American Statistical Association Journal, Vol. 39 (1944), pp. 144 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

156 If the internal control unit has disapproved the form, it is, of course, not handed on to the Bureau.

157 Other staff members may be designated as secondary reviewers, with the primary reviewer serving as the team leader.

158 One agency may be interested because the form, with or without modification, can serve its administrative needs. Another agency may be interested because it maintains a research program in which the data to be obtained by the form will be helpful. A third, lacking any operating or research interest in the data, may never theless be in a position to render technical advice.

159 Standards of technical adequacy govern such matters as the suitability of the proposed method of collection; examination of the coverage proposed, which may be too broad or too narrow, or may involve faulty sampling; evaluation of the proposed frequencies of collection, which may be excessive; and conformity with the bookkeeping functions of an industry which is to submit returns on the form.

160 The written statement sets forth the reasons.

161 In his most recent testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, the budget director supplied the following information about the work of the Division of Statistical Standards: “During the calendar years 1943 and 1944, the Bureau acted on a total of 15,347 forms, of which 1,526 were disapproved. A total of 1,104 of those disapproved were repetitive forms, which would have called for continuing information at periodic intervals. Slightly more than half of the forms acted on during this period were forms required for administrative purposes. Almost 30 per cent were forms used to collect data needed for general informational or policy-making purposes, and the balance were applications for benefits and privileges.” Hearings on the Independent Offices Appropriations Bill for 1946, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945), p. 1306.

162 At the hearing, the agencies concerned or any other interested persons have an opportunity to present their views.

163 While such order is in effect, no federal agency covered by it may obtain for itself any information which the collecting agency is to supply.

164 Established by the budget director in 1942, it has organized some forty subcommittees to deal with specific areas. More recently, the Bureau has created a Labor Advisory Committee and an Agricultural Advisory Committee on Federal Statistics.

165 To stimulate inter-agency contacts among personnel engaged in the collection, processing, or analysis of information, the division issues annually a Directory of Statistical Agencies. For each agency of the government this compilation lists all those in responsible positions who are wholly or partly engaged in statistical activity or in economic or social research. The division also publishes a monthly entitled Statistical Reporter, which contains brief accounts of outstanding developments within and outside the government of special interest to statistical personnel.

166 Executive Order No. 9103 of Mar. 18, 1942.

167 Budget and Accounting Act (see note 101 above), sec. 209.

168 See the literature cited in note 107 above, especially Wilkie, pp. 291 ff., and Pearson, pp. 139 ff. See also the letter's “A General Staff to Aid the President,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 4 (1944), pp. 127 ff.; Gladieux, Bernard L., “Management Planning in the Federal Government,” Advanccd Management, Vol. 5 (1940) pp. 77 ff.Google Scholar; Person, H. S., “Research and Planning as Functions of Administration and Management,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 1 (1941), pp. 65 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, Donald C., “Planning as an Administrative Process,” in National Conference on Planning, Proceedings (Chicago, 1941), pp. 80 ff.Google Scholar; Seidman, Harold, Investigating Municipal Administration (New York, 1941).Google Scholar

169 Established in 1940, the War Projects Unit keeps the budget director posted on the status of industrial construction and production programs supported by public expenditures. The unit's engineer-examiners look into technical and financial aspects and also appraise operating efficiency.

170 A central establishment, the Bureau must do all it can to minimize the distance between it and the field operations of the executive branch. The need for focal points of field analysis led in 1943 to the organization of a few field offices. These are combined in the Bureau's Field Service. Its main duties are to secure for the budget director information about federal field operations; promote economical and effective field administration; and render field assistance to the several divisions of the Bureau. See also Latham, Earl, “Executive Management and the Federal Field Service,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 5 (1945), pp. 16 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

171 See “The Recording of World War II,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (1944), pp. 331 ff.

172 As an example, in its report on the appropriations for the State, Commerce, and Justice Departments and the Federal Loan Agency for the fiscal year 1946, the House Appropriations Committee suggested that the Budget Bureau institute studies with a view to achieving a standardization of the type and extent of work to be performed on the various levels of these agencies, departmental, bureau, and divisional; 79th Cong., 1st Sess., House Rep. No. 333, p. 5. Such suggestions are very valuable both in establishing closer contact between the congressional committee and the Bureau and in furnishing special support for the Bureau in the broadening of studies which may have engaged part of its staff for some time.

173 Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1183.

174 It may be noted that combined operations naturally make it difficult to allocate credit for achievements justly. Said the budget director recently: “I think the Bureau of the Budget must lean over backward, in the very nature of its relationships, to give the departments credit for the work that they do, and not take too much, or not as much as maybe we deserve, for the leadership which we have supplied”; loc. cit. in note 161 above, p. 1304.

175 See note 136 above. In this effort, the Bureau has been specifically encouraged by the House Appropriations Committee.

176 Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1188.

177 Loc. cit. in note 161 above, pp. 1309–1310.

178 In the words of an eminent customer: “The administrative management division of the Bureau of the Budget on many occasions made available the services of its key personnel to assist in an organizational study of some phase of War Department activity that needed to be improved”; Major GeneralNelson, Otto L. Jr., “Wartime Developments in War Department Organization and Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 5 (1945), p. 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

179 For illustrations of administrative studies carried on by the Bureau, see the literature cited in note 107 above, especially Moe, pp. 58 ff. A more detailed listing accompanies the testimony of the chief of the Administrative Management Division before the House Civil Service Committee, loc. cit. in note 144 above, pp. 428 ff. The interplay of questions and answers in connection with this testimony (pp. 375 ff.) shows a most remarkable breakdown in communication and makes very illuminating reading on this score.

180 And from survey teams to points of continuing activity such as estimates work, legislative clearance, inspection of war construction, and review of report forms. The difficulties in such intercommunication spring largely from conflicting notions of too much and too little.

181 Macmahon (loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1184) has referred to the “contacts and negotiations of an extremely pressing and delicate nature” in which the Bureau's “highest officials” were engaged in assisting in the construction of the federal government's war establishment.

182 Informal personal contact among staff members produces the equivalent of an informational digest of exceptionally broad coverage. In a sense, such contact is a continuous process of internal clearance.

183 As one informed observer has put it, in helping to build the war machine of the United States the Bureau “made an extraordinary contribution not only in orderly budgeting, but also in management and organization”; Guliek, Luther, “War Organization of the Federal Government,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (1944), p. 1176.Google Scholar

184 In England, the work of the Bureau's Administrative Management Division has been held up as an example of what the Treasury should be doing; see Select Committee on National Expenditures, Sixteenth Report (London, 1942), pp. 17, 34.Google Scholar Although the British Treasury's organization and methods staff is as yet in the process of seeking its stride, its training work has progressed to the point where returns in departmental self-improvement begin to tell. Of still broader significance is the recent appointment of Sir Edward Bridges, one of the ablest exponents of the “younger” civil service generation, to the position of Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and Head of the Civil Service. He occupies this post in combination with that of Secretary to the War Cabinet, which he has held for some time. In his latter capacity, he is at the helm of the War Cabinet Offices, which have come to include “several of the most vital central organs of government,” to quote the Economist (Feb. 17, 1945), p. 208. This development represents a remarkable parallel to the recommendations brought forth in 1937 by the President's Committee on Administrative Management (see note 139 above).

185 In the language of Executive Order No. 8248 of Sept. 8, 1939.

186 Senate Hearings on the Independent Offices Appropriation Bill for 1946, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945), p. 302.

187 Loc. cit. in note 144 above, p. 275.

188 Loc. cit. in note 186 above, p. 307.

189 See Rogers, Lindsay, “The Staffing of Congress,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 56 (1941), pp. 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Committee on Congress, American Political Science Association, The Reorganization of Congress (Washington, 1945), pp. 22 ff., 79.Google Scholar

190 Loc. cit. in note 186 above, p. 309. Members of the committee had obviously reached the same conclusion. Thus Senator Reed remarked: “Senator Bridges and I have been trying to persuade the chairman we ought to have a larger staff” (ibid.). The budget director had only one caution: “… it would be a mistake, however, if the congressional committees' staffs attempted to duplicate what we are doing and what is primarily a responsibility of the Executive. The staff should act as a channel for information and should report to you at any time you feel proper or you feel the Director of the Budget or his staff is not doing the kind of job from your point of view that should be done” (Md.). For another approach to the staffing problem, see Mr. Cannon's brief, loc. cit. in note 117 above, pp. 10994 ff.

191 Herring, loc. cit. in note 111 above, p. 1158. The author relates this phenomenon to the “traditional American distrust of executive power and a belief in counter balancing the discretionary power of one group of officials with that of another”—which would operate as a source of “great weakness” by permitting a “dangerous lack of coördination” (ibid.). See also Wilmerding, Lucius Jr., The Spending Power: A History of the Efforts of Congress to Control Expenditures (New Haven, 1943).Google Scholar

192 Loc. cit. in note 144 above, p. 289. See, in general, Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 120 above; Wilkie, loc. cit. in note' 107 above, pp. 279 ff.

193 Loc. cit. in note 161 above, p. 1311. See also Walker, Robert A., “The Relation of Budgeting to Program Planning,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 4 (1944), pp. 97 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

194 Public Law No. 458, 78th Cong., 2d Sess.

195 See Key, V. O., “The Reconversion Phase of Demobilization,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (1944), pp. 1137 ff.Google Scholar

196 See Brownlow, Louis, “Reconversion of the Federal Administrative Machinery from War to Peace,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 4 (1944), p. 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

197 Ibid., pp. 316 ff. The precursor to the new statutory office, the Office of War Mobilization, established under Executive Order No. 9347 of May 27, 1943, in certain ways “undercut” the Bureau's institutional rôle (Macmahon, loc. cit. in note 104 above, p. 1184), but there were no signs of serious conflict or friction.

198 Brownlow, loc. cit. in note 196 above, p. 324.

199 The Budget Bureau's function as the government's administrative surveyor was reaffirmed by letter of the President to the budget director of Sept. 18, 1944.

200 Loc. cit. in note 161 above, p. 1310. Justice Byrnes at that time was the head of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion.

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