Imagine how government would work if almost every operating decision——including the hiring and firing of individuals——were made on partisan political grounds; if many agencies spent their entire annual appropriations in the first three months of the fiscal year; if appropriations were made to agencies without anyone having formulated a spending and revenue budget for the jurisdiction as a whole; and if no agency or person in the executive branch had authority to oversee the activities of government agencies.
This state of affairs was, in fact, the norm in the United States in the nineteenth century. That it sounds so chaotic and backward to us is due to the success of early twentieth-century reformers in influencing politics and administration at the city, state, and federal levels. As a result of their influence, most Americans take for granted that administrative decisions should be made in a businesslike manner, that the executive branch should be organized hierarchically, that most agency heads should be appointed by the chief executive, that the appropriations process should begin when the chief executive submits an overall budget to the legislature, that most positions should be staffed by qualified people, that materials should be purchased from responsible vendors based on objective criteria, and that systems of fiscal control and accountability should be reliable.
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