Program Budgeting

As the federal government’s programs have increased in complexity, with regard both to world and national affairs and to state and local interests, the problems of decision making have become vastly more intricate. This book is designed to help improve understanding of the principles of program budgeting in relation to the decisionmaking process in the federal government; to stimulate others to develop these ideas further; and to accelerate the application of program budgeting in governmental activities.

Divided into three sections, the book begins with a discussion of the government decisionmaking process, the role of budgeting, and efforts made in past years by the federal government to improve the planning–programming–budgeting process. The second section covers the introduction of program budgeting in the Department of Defense and possible application to other federal activities. The third section deals with the subject of implementation and operation of the program budget and discusses an operating federal program budget in terms of its usefulness to specific areas.