Congress and executive branch budget reform: the house appropriations committee and zero-base pudgeting

Abstract

Zero-Base Budgeting is looked upon exclusively as an Executive branch budget preparation tool. But what happens after such a budget is prepared and used as the basis for the more traditional budget later presented to the Congress by the President? Can agencies' budgets prepared under a ZBB format be of use t o Congress - and particularly the Appropriations Comnittees - in reviewing the various budget requests made by such agencies each year? This article examines one aspect of the Congressional response (and oftentines lack of it) to ZBB during the first year that that budget innovation was applied on a government-wide basis. Drawing upon the official, published record of the Fiscal Year (FY) 1979 hearings of the Eoouse Appropriations Committee (HAC), the record of the floor action of the variols HAC bills, the Coinnittee reprts on the bills , and interviews with staff members of the HAC and its subcomnittees, the authors detail the extent of interest of each subcumittee of the HAC in the ZBF budgets of...