Is Firefighting Mandatory? Evaluating the Political Economy of Mandatory and Discretionary Programs
19 Pages Posted: 11 Aug 2010 Last revised: 16 Aug 2010
Date Written: 2010
Abstract
This paper asks, what leads to one budgetary structure or the other? Governments programs are designed as either requiring annual appropriations or as entitlements, in which annual program spending does not require new Congressional action. There are tradeoffs to using either of these approaches. The use of entitlement budget structure may better allow a program to achieve its goals. For example, programs like unemployment compensation whose precise resource needs cannot be precisely determined in advance benefit from the entitlement program structure. On the other hand, incentives generated by Congressional program oversight incorporated in the annual appropriations process will be reduced. In addition, with entitlements, aggregate spending controls are impaired. To understand design choice, some authors have looked at case studies of entitlement programs. That approach, however, ignores those discretionary programs with similar programmatic needs as the studied entitlements. For example, a program like wildland firefighting has complex appropriations that cannot be predicted in advance, yet is funded through annual appropriations. This analysis will survey both entitlement and discretionary programs to understand the basis for budget design.
Keywords: budget structure, public administration, entitlements
JEL Classification: H11, H61
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation