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Budgetary Control in a Decentralized System: Meeting the Criteria for Fiscal Stability in the European Union
Author(s) -
Wildavsky Aaron,
Jones L.R.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
public budgeting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.694
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1540-5850
pISSN - 0275-1100
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5850.01017
Subject(s) - entitlement (fair division) , control (management) , european union , economics , balanced budget , public economics , business , debt , accounting , finance , economic policy , political science , microeconomics , management , politics , law
This article provides a set of measures that are recommended to the leadership of the European Union to enhance budgetary balance and control within a highly decentralized system, one that requires the coordination of budgetary policy in more than a dozen nations. These measures are intended to be relevant to European budgetary coordination efforts but also appear to apply to U.S. federal initiatives to reduce the annual budget deficit and total debt. The individual measures recommended include holding increases in expenditures at or below the rate of GDP growth, establishing envelopes for major accounts, placing all entitlement on a pay‐as‐you‐go basis, means testing of entitlements and elimination of automatic entitlement indexing, considering the option of marginal reductions in some entitlement programs, and voting on budgets as single, omnibus packages. The proposal to establish executive line‐item budget authority also is evaluated‐and rejected.