A bibliography on research resources on appropriations mention an American Political Science Review article by Edward C. Banfield. The bibliography notes Banfield’s wry observation: “In all the discussion of congressional reform no one has suggested that the objective of budgeting and appropriating is to secure the most desirable allocation of resources among alternative uses.”

Banfield’s observation was not wrong then (1949) nor today. Despite the enactment of the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, which aimed to rationalize budgeting, pluralistic politics and the demadns of the administrative state still dominate budgeting decisions.