STUDENT 1: Schweitzer
Reprogramming is an effective tool to change the budget.I do not feel it is improper.At times changes need to occur.Sometimes the changes are disastrous, and sometimes a positive effect shows years later.These processes were emplaced to control spending.However instead Congress uses its voting committees to ensure agencies act as they define, by determining how apportionments occur.This sounds corrupt, and I’m certain at times it may be, but it is also an effective tool for applying controls to agencies who have all outgrown their intended weight.If anything outside of ethical is associated with this topic, then it is that these controls have led to increases in the deficit through tradeoffs.Instead bipartisan deals where the budget is balanced, instead we find ourselves, with bipartisan deals where everyone wins.That is not a negotiation.It is a strategy for reelection.
Impoundments are an effective tool that ensure no one does their job, or that they do it late.In the example from the course text they discuss disability checks.The person who is supposed to pay an apportioned fund to staff those cutting the checks is delayed, which means the person that was supposed to process disability checks did not do so in an orderly period of time.This prevents agencies from spending money.This, debatably corrupt practice, is another strategy for changing the budget.The Antideficiency Act enables the president to make changes to provide funds to contingencies and to create savings.These strategies to change the budget may all seem a tad unethical, but they are used.
The discretion- abuse- control cycle occurs exactly in that order.Agencies are given leeway in how money is spent.Additionally, agencies offer leniency in reaction to the leniency they are offered.The concept is simple.I had a first sergeant who summarized the driving factor behind this cycle in one sentence, “you can not expect, what you do not inspect.”This means that when agencies are not strictly monitored then they do not strictly monitor the movement of money.Why waste time on auditing processes if they are not being validated?
In budgeting, this cycle is also driven from how funding occurs.Early in the budgeting process appropriations were defined by line items which offered almost no discretion in agency spending.With the growth of government, it was no longer reasonable to do apportionments on the basis of line items, and full amounts were apportioned to agencies.Although this provides agencies with grand autonomy, when Congress decides to reprogram apportionment funds the agencies comply.Now agencies and committees are able to mutually benefit from a structure where agencies spend with discretion and Congress is able to approve or deter reprogramming options.
STUDENT 2: Sparks
Identify tools for changing the budget and explain the process. Do you think this process is proper, or do you think it allows changes to be made without proper oversight?
The federal budget process is full of checks and balances. It is complex in it’s development structure to ensure that the best interests of the taxpayers are at hand. While there are many steps in establishing the budget, there also have to be steps to make changes, to best suit the interests of the citizens the government represents. There are a multitude of ways that the federal budget can be changed. An example as to how changes are made to the budget would be supplemental appropriations and deferrals. Supplemental appropriations are used in addition to appropriations that are already in place in order to address issues like emergency relief. Deferrals are when appropriations are postponed for various reasons.
Describe the discretion-abuse-control cycle and explain the politics of finding waste, fraud, and abuse. Do you think politics should have a role in the process?
The discretion-abuse-control cycle is essentially a potential fault system in relation to a program, where lack of validation leads to abuse, and therefore needs control to be sustained. Auditing is extremely important within the federal budget/acquisition process due to things of this nature. If funding is allocated and the uses are unchecked, then there is a major capacity for negative outcomes. Politics within the budget process seems to be essentially inevitable, however, I believe that it should be minimized as much as possible.
