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Congress and the Establishment of a National Budget System in the United States during the Progressive Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2023

JAMES V. SATURNO Open the ORCID record for JAMES V. SATURNO [Opens in a new window]
JAMES V. SATURNO*
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Washington, DC
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Abstract

In order to establish a new national budget system during the Progressive Era, Congress had to overcome an earlier convention in which it used detailed appropriations in an attempt to control the budgetary actions of federal agencies and the president served no formal role. Incremental changes to strengthen congressional budgetary controls proved inadequate but provided reformers with an opportunity to supplant the existing orthodoxy, resulting in the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. Although most studies have focused on the Act in terms of its effects on presidential power and presidential/congressional relations, this study focuses on congressional actions and debates to show how reform was rooted in long-standing congressional concerns about the need to control agency budgetary actions and was understood at the time as a culmination of those efforts, not simply as a case of Congress enhancing presidential power at its own expense.

Keywords

Budget and Accounting ActBudget processPresidential budgetTaft CommissionJames W. Good
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 281 - 306
Copyright
© Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press, 2023

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the 2019 meeting of the Southern Political Science Association. Mr. Saturno is employed as a Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process at the Congressional Research Service. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not presented as those of the Congressional Research Service or the Library of Congress. His affiliation with Congressional Research Service is noted here solely for purposes of identification.

References

Notes

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39. 45 Cong. Rec. 7656 (June 10, 1910) (statement of Sen. Bristow).

40. 45 Cong. Rec. 7657 (June 10, 1910) (statement of Sen. Bristow).

41. 45 Cong. Rec. 7656 (June 10, 1910) (statement of Sen. Hale).

42. Pub. L. No. 61-266, 36 Stat. 703.

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48. Moe, Administrative Renewal, 10.

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54. Pub. L. No. 62-299, 37 Stat. 415. Hostility towards the Commission can also be found in Hearings Before the Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriations in Charge of Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill for 1914 relating to The President’s Commission on Economy and Efficiency, 62d Cong., 3d Sess. (January 13, 1913).

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58. 49 Cong. Rec. 4351 (February 28, 1913) (statement of Rep. Sherley). Variations of Sherley’s proposal for a committee that would set a top line for appropriators would resurface on several occasions, most notably in the legislative budget provisions of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (Pub. L. No. 79-601, 60 Stat. 812) and the concurrent resolution on the budget in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Pub. L. No. 93-344, 88 Stat 297).

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69. Wilmerding, The Spending Power, 155.

70. Wilmerding, The Spending Power, 164.

71. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on the Budget, Hearings Before the Select Committee on the Budget on the Establishment of a National Budget System, 66th Cong., 1st Sess., 65 (September 22, 1919) (statement of William F. Willoughby).

72. Hearings on the Establishment of a National Budget System.

73. Hearings on the Establishment of a National Budget System, 474.

74. 58 Cong. Rec. 7083 (daily ed. Oct. 17, 1919) (statement of Rep. Good).

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76. H. Rep. No. 66-362, at 6.

77. H. Rep. No. 66-362, at 9.

78. Cleveland and Buck, The Budget and Responsible Government, 375.

79. 58 Cong. Rec. 7084 (October 17, 1919) (statement of Rep. Good).

80. 58 Cong. Rec. 7086 (October 17, 1919) (statement of Rep. Byrns).

81. 58 Cong. Rec. 7101 (October 17, 1919) (statement of Rep. French).

82. 58 Cong. Rec. 7297 (October 21, 1919). Vote counts in this era often do not provide a true measure of total support and opposition to a question because they typically include a large number of Members (in both the House and Senate) identified in roll-call votes as “not voting.” This frequently was due to the practice of pairing. Although not common in current practice, a “live” pair involves an announcement of an agreement between one Member who is present and another on the opposite side of the question, who is absent, that neither of them is recorded for purposes of a specific roll-call vote. For a “dead” pair, neither Member is present, but they may have indicated their respective preference beforehand. For a “general” pair, Members are listed in the Congressional Record as not voting without an indication of their positions.

83. For example, McCormick had had Plan for a National Budget System by Charles W. Collins reprinted as a House document (H. Doc. 1006, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., Mar 27, 1918).

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87. S. Rep. No. 66-524 (1920), at 1.

88. 59 Cong. Rec. 6395 (May 1, 1920).

89. S. Doc. 66-279 (1920)/H. Rep. 66-1044 (1920).

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91. 59 Cong. Rec. 8103 (June 1, 1920) (statement of Rep. Fess). See also H. Rep. 66-373 (Report of the Select Committee on the Budget).

92. Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 89–93.

93. 59 Cong. Rec. 8109 (June 1, 1920) (statement of Rep. Haugen).

94. 59 Cong. Rec. 8115 (June 1, 1920) (statement of Rep. Padgett).

95. 59 Cong. Rec. 8117 (June 1, 1920) (statement of Rep. Good).

96. 59 Cong. Rec. 8115 (June 1, 1920).

97. 59 Cong. Rec. 8120 (June 1, 1920).

98. 59 Cong. Rec. 8120 (June 1, 1920). The Senate did not address the recentralization issue until 1922. For a discussion of the Senate’s actions, see Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism, 93–98. Senate reconsolidation was further necessitated by House reorganization of appropriations bills (beginning with FY1923) along lines suggested by the Bureau of the Budget, which made Senate jurisdictional divisions under the old organization effectively unworkable. For more on the organization of appropriations bills and subcommittees, see James V. Saturno, Appropriations Subcommittee Structure: History of Changes from 1920 to 2021, Congressional Research Service Report RL31572, February 8, 2021.

99. Veto Message in 59 Cong. Rec. 8609 (June 4, 1920) and printed as H. Doc. 66-805.

100. 59 Cong. Rec. 8609–14 (June 4, 1920).

101. 59 Cong. Rec. 8657 (June 5, 1920).

102. Meeting of William F. Willoughby, with Harding mentioned in Report to the Trustees in Brookings Institution files, and cited in Critchlow, The Brookings Institution, 38. Although Critchlow dates the meeting as February 1920, Harding would have been President-elect in February 1921.

103. 61 Cong. Rec. 662 (April 26, 1921).

104. 61 Cong. Rec. 1092 (May 5, 1921). Although the House Select Committee on the Budget had reported H.R. 30, its own version of the budget reform bill (H. Rep. 67-14), the House took up the Senate version for consideration.

105. Correspondence of James W. Good to William H. Taft, May 19, 1921, obtained from the personal collection of James W. Good, Jr.

106. S. Doc. 67-15 /H. Rep. 67-96.

107. 61 Cong. Rec. 1783 (May 26, 1921), and 61 Cong. Rec. 1859 (May 27, 1921), respectively.

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