Strengthening the federal budget process: A requirement for effective fiscal control

Recent Books Strengthening the Federal Budget Process: A Requirement for Effective Fiscal Control. A Statement by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development. New York: Committee for Economic Development (CED), 1983. 110 pp. $10.50 ISBN o-87186-077-5 ($8.50 O-87186-777-X paperbound). Delays, political conflicts, and out-of-control deficits have increasingly come to characterize federal budget performance. CED’s policy statement examines the strengths and weaknesses of the present budget process and recommends needed improvements, related to the concepts and information required to allow policy makers to make rational budget choices. CED supports the preservation of the basic elements of the existing budget process, as it is integrated, highly visible, and a multiyear approach, which holds elected officials and representatives fully accountable for budget decisions. Striking a Balance: Making National Economic Policy. Albert Rees. Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1984. 118 pp. $12.50 ISBN o-226-70707-5. This book sets forth in clear, nontechnical language the principal goal of national economic policy, the instruments used to achieve those goals, and the political and economic problems arising from conflicts among goals and the inappropriate choice of instruments. The book is designed for the general public and for students in related fields of public policy, journalism, and law. Unlike economics textbooks, it not organized according to theoretical categories, such as supply and demand, but around issues such as full employment and inflation. It presents different views of controversial issues fairly. Taxation, Inflation, and Znterest Rates. Vito Tanzi, ed. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1984. $20.00 ISBN O939934-32-9 ($15.00 ISBN O-939934-33-7 paperbound). Part I of this volume consists of a paper that touches on many theoretical, as well as policy, issues arising out of the tax treatment of interest income and expense. The other papers are an input into this one. The paper is perhaps the only published source in which information from many industrial countries on the legal treatment of interest income and expense has been compiled. Part II provides background papers. The overall work examines examples of monetary-fiscal links, the Fisher effect, and what happens if investors 440