Question

How can a performance integrated budget be used to counter the archaic practice of across-the-board budget cuts?

Answer 1

Across the board budget cuts are in true sense archaic since it works on the construct of uniformly decreasing a dollar amount from all the programs or a proportion reduction (all programs are cut by, say, ten percent). The latter is desirable, as specific dollar reductions would fall terribly unevenly on programs of various magnitude i.e. if $200 million cut in a $300 million program may be a 66 % reduction, whereas a $100 million cut in an exceedingly $10 billion program is merely one percent.

Performance budgeting is joined to extended efforts to enhance expenditure management and performance. It will further be combined with exaggerated flexibility for managers reciprocally for stronger responsibleness for the results, to enable them to decide how to best deliver public services.

Numerous countries have reported many advantages from using performance information, not least the actual fact that it generates a sharper focus on results within government. the method also provides additional and better understanding of presidency goals and priorities and on however totally different programs contribute to them. At a similar time, performance info encourages bigger stress on coming up with and offers a decent indication of what's operating and what's not. This tool conjointly improves transparency, by providing additional and higher info to legislatures and the public.

Arguments Against all-encompassing Cuts and wherever Performance based mostly technique will drastically impact decision making.

1. many programs can't be cut in the least while not doing great damage. within the case of the federal government virtually every program that has grown rapidly within the past 5 years i.e. on an average roughly thirty five percent—that there's lots of space to cut.

2. across-the-board cuts are aforesaid to be “thought- less” or maybe “unfair.” The premise of this argument is that some programs should be cut, and others don't. however this is often precisely the problem: which programs are which? There aren't any objective ways that to rank programs; furthermore, there's no political agreement on what programs are to be cut. Some favor defense whereas others favor the food stamp program.

3. across-the-board cuts are said to be ineffective because they are doing not touch programs like Medicare, which are outside the discretionary budget. entitlement programs have grown speedily in recent years and, unless reformed, will do so in the future as well. there's no reason in theory why claim programs ought to be exempt from across-the-board cuts; to the contrary, were it not for the problem of interest dynamics, there would be every reason to focus predominantly on cutting these programs.

4. across-the-board cuts are technically difficult to achieve. they are not; there is no reason that legislative instructions cannot be given to congressional committees of jurisdiction to, say, cut back Medicare disbursal by 3 percent, or to craft a program during which Medicare grows more slowly in the future.