Some of the best writings on public budgeting and finance can be found in the journals that ASPA publishes or sponsors. For this volume editor Irene Rubin has brought together the best of these articles - emerging classics that address the most important theoretical and practical problems underlying public budgeting.The anthology is organized topically rather than historically, with an effort to delineate the issues needed to understand some of the more recent controversies in the field. Rubin's introductory essay and section openers frame the key issues and provide historical context for...

Covering the period from 1982 to 1998, this book chronicles the efforts of the U.S. federal government as it tried and eventually succeeded in balancing the budget. The book traces the successive efforts of Congress and the administration to shape a process that would encourage balance and the reactions of federal agencies to budget balancing pressures. Fundamentally an optimistic book, its message is that once a problem is put on the agenda, government can learn to solve it, maybe not in the most efficient possible way, but in a ragged and democratic fashion.

Offering case studies of financial management in numerous American cities over a period of enormous growth and change, the author explores the historical context of municipal budgeting in the United States and the political environment that conditions reform and problem solving at the local level.