Political Science

    The Budgetary processes by many governments in the world are often influenced by politics. The political party that has formed the government often wants to fund projects that are supported by the majority of its supporters, failure to which it risks loosing popularity. Of major concern is the level to which political influence affects the process of national budgeting. A country like Canada has experienced political influences in its public budgeting (David, 2007). In any given economy, there are usually guardians of finance. In most cases, these are the boards of finance and treasury. Other guardians are the departmental spenders that perform a very important role in the public budget process. This research paper seeks to show how politics influence the public budgeting process.
    Complicated multilateral relationships exist between the guardians, setters of priorities, spenders and the watchdogs (Lars, 1996). The watchdogs here are the general auditors as well as the entire committees of public accounts. Issues have arisen when politicians attempt to control and manage the money belonging to the public. The public budget process works under several key objectives. These are discussed below.
Objectives of public budget
    One objective observed by the principal contributors to the process of budgeting is to sustain aggregate monetary discipline in the process the money belonging to the government should be utilized for the common good of the public without any incidences of fraud. Another major and key objective of budgeting is to allocate resources guided by the priorities laid down by the government.  It is very important for these key players to show commitment to delivering as per the expectations of the central government. The third objective is to promote and enhance efficiency in the delivery of goods and services to the public through the budget (Lindblom, 1965).
Political Influence on the Public Budget making
    All the key functions and roles of the principle players in the public budget have been influenced by political involvement. The planning progress of the budget and the management of the public funds have greatly been impacted by the political leadership (Peterson, 1975). The political leaders have had a big say in the final copy of the budget of public resources. Therefore, the budgetary process has incorporated other new players that include political players.
      This has therefore resulted into new concepts of budget which have informally been introduced into the priorities laid down by the setters. The collaboration of these players has been seen to involve unethical budgetary procedures because many responsibilities have been put aside. The guardians of the budgetary committee have consequently changed. The working together of the Finance department and the Board of Treasury secretariat, although very significant, is now hidden (Pigou, 1946).
    The outside macro side of the Finance Department with the inside micro of the secretariat to the Treasury Board in deed compliment each other. Again the spenders of the public resources have also been completely changed in the way they acquire money, keep and go ahead to utilizing it (Lindblom, 1965). Their relationship with the rest of the players is now taking another route. In federal governments that are headed by the Prime Minister, the relationship between his office and that of finance minister is becoming a major issue.
The office of the Prime minister has its priorities and this usually influence the way the budget would be framed. This is in particularly on the front-end of the budgetary procedure. The very important role of the watchdogs of public finance has increased mostly than that of the general auditor. The politics that surrounds public money comes out as a pluralistic discourse where there is a common ridge of the democratic society that can be regarded as the ineluctable result of brokerage political affairs (Dietmar, 2000).
There is always a struggle in trying to define what the government is purposed to achieve and the reason as to why it exists. The things the government wants to accomplish have indeed affected the budgetary process. Sometimes stating that the governments intentions should not be put forward at the expense of the public resources sounds rude but it is a mere fact (David, 2007).
Taking these issues from an outside perspective, social agendas of a similar kind have been found to meddle with the real budget priorities given by the setters. However, the administration from outside, whose representational and material requirements or demands are not included and the people in the bureaucracy whose actions and politics appear at times very different to the predicament of the real people in the land, is indeed a humiliating affair (Pigou, 1946). Many political agendas presented in the manifestos of parties have had very misleading budgetary proposals.
Budgeting of the public resources has truly been misguided and more especially in the developing countries. The plans exhibited in the political leaders proposals seem to go contrary to the expectations of the people on the ground. The problems addressed in such budgets do not tackle the problems at hand. There has been repeated such cases which have been very much unhelpful to the people (Dietmar, 2000).
 The budgeting of the public resources should always follow the stipulated objectives above. Some of the things that are more efficacious to the political leaders may not be felt by the people in the country. This has been challenging to various leaders to some extent, basically in the area of ensuring equitable distribution of resources. There is always a certain class of people who really need some kind of goods or services. The budget allocations of such products and services may only favor some particular groups (Lindblom, 1965).
There have been very few social programs drawn by politics to the common good of the people. In any country, there will always be a mixed class of people. The socialist and the capitalistic groups can co-exist in a certain economy. Catering for the needs of both groups can be very hard. The capitalistic group has in most cases been found to benefit at the expense of the socialist group. This is because politics comprise greatly of the capitalistic group. As a matter of fact, the budget plans of a certain nation could be very high for the socialist group (Pigou, 1946).
 There is therefore a need to strike some balance in the budgetary allocations. The needs of all people need to be addressed. This has been a very great challenge to many public administration institutions. Many levels of government structures have greatly influenced public budgeting and have had its roots from the political arena. The efforts put in by the politics of public resources were aimed at connecting the public accounts with the needs of the public.
 The public resources have in a similar way been linked to political preferences or priorities. When all attention is put or focused on accounting and accountability, such a scenario can never be achieved. However, there are two crucial things that revolve around these kinds of politics. In the first place, the issue of giving a vivid, comprehensive and complete treatment of the public expenditures in a particular country is greatly needed. All these issues are very crucial and their close examination gives a chance to promote the welfare of the public (David, 2007).
Another thing is that the interrelated areas of funding and development of policies in such a way show the inner proceedings of the federal governments order of priority and the execution of policies (Lindblom, 1965). This process has in the past been politically influenced. The priorities of the government come as a result of many considerations, including the stakeholders in political scenes. The end result of budget and its priorities has in most cases been dictated by these external forces of government.
 It is not only the guardians of finance who take part fully in this but also other new players in politics who have a say in the process of budgeting. The new players decisions take the priorities of the budget in another direction. Sometimes, one or more of the objectives of the entire budget are not met (Dietmar, 2000). The allocations of the public resources will be channeled to other projects than those prioritized by the government.
The third thing through which political influence affects the process is that it gives insight into the way political administration indeed works for people who do not form a part of the formal process of politics. This has been very useful from the side of appointed and elected officials. Because politics and governance are inseparable with the budgetary process, there is therefore need to bring the process of public finance and policies at one point to enhance the transparency of the systems of governance (Bish, 1971).
This will make the intrusion of politics into the public budgeting, an accountable procedure. It will promote the objectives of public budgeting. Accountability will ensure equitable resources allocation to the people of the land. However, this procedure has been found inapplicable to political and public administrative amateurs.
The above effort therefore deserves the highest appraisal. The use of powerful audits of performance could increase the power of the Auditor General. This should be realized in the building of a reputation regarding the transparency, assumed objectivity and credibility (Baumol, 1965). The Audit General could therefore be found to have an indirect influence on the budgeting procedure and more so at the end of the process. Altogether, this can contribute so much in shaping the character and behavior of the guardians, priority setters and the spenders. These effects on the budget have a big impact in the end result of the budget drawn.
The culture of the people gives them the authority to negotiate solutions by making use of social interaction. Some political groups have been found to agitate for some particular programs in many nations. This has been done irrespective of the pressing needs of the entire society. The process has adversely affected the budgetary process. These programs come into place through the campaigns in the media, lobbying the makers of decisions and also through funding (Bish, 1971).
By the use of these methods, the support has been found for a particular political group. Those who are opposed to the political group do not benefit from the budget process. The priorities set by the political groups are done in favor of the supporters of the political movement. The roles of the players change there is the emergence of the politics of public resources and money and which has a very big say in the public budgeting process (Baumol, 1965).
Therefore, it has been found that political groups come up with a process that is seen to gather power to win. The leaders of the political groups offer promises to their people which they agitate for to ensure that they are incorporated in the public budget. These are efforts by the leaders to see that they win the attention of the people who are not opposed to a certain political group (David, 2007). The objectives of these political groups are completely different from the objectives of the public budgetary committee. These have had much influence in the decisions that the federal government finds more efficacious to put forward as their priorities.
From all these, the non-supporters, which form part of the loosing clique, have suffered and in the end have experienced a more clear conflict and moments of uneasiness. The lives of the people in the public are made miserable. Every person is fighting for power and authority (Bator, 1962). The moment the power is attained, the steps taken in the allocation of public resources will definitely move towards the winning end in a larger percentage.
The people in the loosing end in politics have time and again been neglected to some level in the budgeting process. The situation has been worsened when the winning side comprises mostly of the capitalistic society. The budgetary plans thereby are too high for the socialist groups (Bator, 1962). The way of thinking and fiscal status of these two groups are completely differently. The problems existing in the capitalistic society are very few and seem to address larger needs which may be luxurious to the socialist group.
Because of this scenario, the loosing group will stretch so much to get to these levels. The proposals put forward by the governing political group work to their disadvantage. The public budget is therefore found to be dictated by the nature and form of the government in place. This is because as seen in the objectives of the budgeting process, the players involved here seek to put more emphasis on the things the government has prioritized (Baumol, 1965).
Instead of creating reciprocated support by means of negotiations, the public budget process is found to have characteristics of hostility. The process of budget making can be termed as hostile and unfriendly when the political groups input does not cut across the whole society in the nation. The process of public budgeting is so defined due to these issues. The loosing side remains helpless having nothing to do. They are forced to wait for demands made by those in leadership or the majority, whether they are supportive of the proposals or not. It is indeed humiliating. The roles and the functions of the committee members in the budget does not count that much. The decisions made by the committee are greatly influenced by the leading political group (Bator, 1962).
A Case study of USA
In the United States there are some instances where the party with the largest number of the legislatures will have an upper hand in making decision about the priorities in the federal budget. If the majorities are the democrats or republicans, it is possible that they are likely to support projects that will promote the policies of the party. In the year 2002 for example, there were fears that the Senate would not reach an agreement pertaining to the budget resolution. In 1998, the Congress had failed to come up with a budget resolution. The budget resolution is a response by the Congress to the budget proposal that has been made by the president. Both houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate must approve the budget (Desmone, 2002).
In 1995 and 1996, the Republicans together with the house speaker had attempted to take control of the budget process with the aim of passing their own priorities on the then president, Bill Clinton, a democrat. After some several years, it was not possible for the congress to enact the resolution in order to guide appropriations. In addition, it was not possible to restore the pay as you go rules (PAYGO) and only two of the thirteen appropriation bills could be passed eventually. In 1994, when there were majority republicans in both houses after a period of forty years, they attempted to utilize their large number to force their policies as well as to control the president. For example, they formed a budget resolution with an approximately 1 trillion dollars in spending cuts in areas such as Medicare. They at one time had threatened the then president that they would maker his government ungovernable if it was necessary (LeLoup, 2007). These are some of the example that shows how politics can interfere with the process of budget making.

    The public budgeting process has been met by a lot of challenges especially when the political scene has been filled with ideas of implementing what they consider best for them. The objectives of transparency and accountability have been found wanting. The need for the establishment of a watch dogs would see the establishment of change in the political administration. The watch dog will help to bring rectification on spending that is questionable in the event that it arises. The Auditor General should have a deterrence effect for improper and poor leadership method of spending and thereby improving on the accountability and transparency of the budget proposals.
    The hostility seen in budgeting of public money has led to the emergence of difficult fiscal rules instead of the very rationale financial rules and principles. The expenditure allocation process is very crucial to the success of each and every public budget. Many allocations are based on the issue of priority while the fewer ones find their justification through performance. It is therefore imperative to incorporate performance thought into budget allotment.
 Victorious performance of a certain department may rely on extra financial support in order that it may attain standards which are acceptable. Moreover, poor performance as realized through politics at times in their programs could be the outcome of the public administrative uncertainty or even possibly a general wrong strategy. In the events of such occasions, these poor performances are required to be identified and considered for expenditure in the future for a more effective process of public budgeting process. The budget making process is a very important activity for a country and thus should be done soberly. Political interferences may produce a public budget that is substandard and that prioritize on minor things or those that are in the policies of the leading political group.