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Even more remarkably, the job has evolved to the point where it is logical for Rowland Hughes. Before Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, he and his advisers worked out "The Great Equation" —the important relationship of maximum economic strength to military strength in fighting the cold war. Economic strength meant a drive to end inflation, and that meant an end to deficit financing. Cost-conscious, Ike was the first President to appoint his Budget Director to a permanent seat on the Cabinet and the National Security Council. Cabinet members not only make the trip to see Rowland Hughes in his office in the Old State Building, but most of them are so well-trained by the rigors of business life that they have a healthy respect for the job he is trying to get done.
On the Lid. In a household or a business, the essence of good budget-making is to reduce all assorted debts and dreams to the common denominator of dollars so that the budgetmakers can see how to get the most out of the money on hand or in prospect. Modern government is a collection of fragmented divisions and departments, each sure of its own manifest destiny and naturally inclined to expand without worrying whether total income balances total outgo. It is Rowland Hughes's job to provide the kind of lid for uninhibited government that limited funds impose on a housewife or a businessman—and to hold the lid down with the best of his 250 Ibs.
But this kind of counterpressure, as every corporation executive knows, should be something more than just sweating out pennies and dollars. Ideally, by forcing department heads to translate plans into costs, the budget process teaches them how to get the best combination of plans for the least money. For example, the Air Force's General Curtis LeMay has made his Strategic Air Command cost-conscious right down to squadron level. A squadron commander who performs his missions and keeps his costs down is usually running a superior outfit because he has found ways to cut the number of accidents, keep crews healthy, and reduce the time lost in overhaul. A good budgeteer gets his final test when he looks back over his year's estimates to see what kind of planner he really turned out to be.
Unfortunately for budgetmakers, the Federal Government was not constructed to make economic sense. Until 1921, individual executive departments went to Congress for funds. Time and again, petulant Congresses tried to hobble the President's powers by specifying right down to the last file clerk how the money should be spent. The Treasury Department doled out payments (most 19th century income came from customs duties) on congressional appropriation, and the accounting system was set up to assure that everyone was acting within the law—but not necessarily efficiently.
Because the U.S. was still dizzy from a $24 billion debt piled up in World War I, Warren Harding was the first President to win the right to revise, reduce or increase budget estimates from the departments. (Under the 1921 act, the penalty for the agency head who bypasses the Budget Bureau is a $500 fine and/or one year in jail.) The director was clearly intended to be the President's man, because Congress did not even require Senate confirmation of his appointment.