The Steps in the Budget Process

Budgeting allows the government to create some spending plan n for its money ensuring that it has got enough money for all the important things it intends to do. A budget process is a process where the government will create and approve a budget. In many cases, the framework of the budget will be divided into five stages that will be governed by different people using different procedures defined in the Budget Act.

The first stage is the submission of the budget proposal by the president. The President submits a complete copy of the budget request to the Congress. The proposal put forward will contain the funding priorities, the Administration policies and the economic outlook following the coming fiscal year.

The proposal of the budget will contain some estimates of the borrowing levels, revenue, and spending of various federal agencies. The next stage is the adoption of the budget resolution. In this stage, the senate and the house committee will analyze the budget submitted by the president and report on some resolutions on the budget allocation and spending. The budget resolution will also establish the aggregate totals of the revenue levels and spending for the next five years. (Mikesell, & Ross, 2014).

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The third step in the process is the passage of the appropriate bills. In this step, the House will consider that appropriation bills based on the allocation and spending in the budget resolution. The levels of allocation will be constrained and controlled by the senate, and the house as the bill goes through the hearing. The fourth step in the process is reconciliation legislation. If the budget and allocation in the budget resolution require some changes based on the existing laws, the resolution in this stage will be adjusted to cater for the changes.

The last step in the budget process is Evaluation and Audit. The agency chief financial officers will oversee the activities in the budget relating to the agency programs and financial statements and auditing done on the financial statements followed to determine whether the agency previous year's financial statement comply with the budget. (Mikesell, & Ross, 2014).

The main issue that Cruz present in his argument is an allocation of budget. NASA does not allocates its budget well and spends a lot of money on earth science neglecting other important things. The act of overspending its money and time on one project will reduce the spending of their projects affecting the overall performance of these projects. Cruz is much more concerned about the small budget allocated to the exploration of the space which he thinks is also an important project.

The core mission of NASA is to explore and investigate the space which helps make the world a better place to live in. NASA, however, spends less time and budget in space exploration and spends a lot of time in earth science. In this case, NASA Administrator, Charles Bolton, does not effectively plan for the long-term interest of the Agency since he does not allocate the budget equitably in various projects of the Agency. Overspending one area will lead to the downfall of other areas.

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