Federal Budget Making

Report Outline
Budget Approach of Incoming President
Operation of Federal Budget System
Budget Choices After the Viet Nam War
Special Focus

Budget Approach of Incoming President

Budget Dilemmas at a Change of Presidents

Federal budget making is the process of sorting out national priorities. The complex and painstaking exercise forces the White House to make hard choices involving competing constituencies and political pressures. By having to put a price tag on its goals, the administration must choose between what it considers attainable and what is merely desirable.

These choices are now being made by Richard M. Nixon and his advisers but, like all incoming Presidents in recent times, Nixon must live for a while with the budget he inherits from the departing incumbent. President Johnson will present to Congress on or about Jan. 13, one week before he leaves office, the federal budget for the fiscal year 1970, beginning next July 1. Nixon is certain to revise it, but probably not entirely as he would like.

President Eisenhower in 1953 found little room to maneuver in the budget President Truman had left him for fiscal 1954. Eisenhower cut it by $4.5 billion but still felt impelled to ask Congress to postpone tax reductions which he wanted. President Kennedy in 1961 added $8 billion to the last Eisenhower budget but was unable to win from Congress that year a series of tax revisions to stimulate the economy.