Created in 1974, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has become one of the most influential forces in national policymaking. A critical component of our system of checks and balances, the CBO has given Congress the analytical capacity to challenge the president on budget issues while it protects the public interest, providing honest numbers about Congress's own budget proposals. The book discusses the CBO's role in larger budget policy and the more narrow "scoring" of individual legislation, such as its role in the 2009--2010 Obama health care reform. It also describes how the first director, Alice Rivlin, and seven successors managed to create and sustain a nonpartisan, highly credible agency in the middle of one of the most partisan institutions imaginable.

"The Congressional Budget Office: Honest Numbers, Power, and Policy" draws on interviews with high-level participants in the budget debates of the last 35 years to tell the story of the CBO. A combination of political history, economic history, and organizational development, "The Congressional Budget Office" offers an important, first book-length history of this influential agency.

The 'managing for results' movement that began in the early 1990s has now reached adolescence and is creating new challenges for government managers. After spending years creating planning and performance-measuring systems, managers and policy makers now need to focus on how to use performance information to make data-driven decisions. Managing Results for 2005 describes through a series of case studies the progress being made in federal, state, and local governments in managing for results. Part I increases our understanding about the potential use of performance information in government. It starts with a chapter on how government leaders can overcome obstacles to using performance information. Another chapter presents a comprehensive framework for tying performance to the budget process. The book provides specific examples of how performance information has been used to dramatically improve program outcomes. Part II presents case studies on the use of performance information to improve results in a range of federal agencies, in Texas state government, and in the City of Baltimore. As pioneering efforts, these examples do not all present success stories; nevertheless, the lessons learned will be instructive to public managers as the 'managing for results' movement advances toward maturity.

Governments are under increasing pressure to produceOCoand to demonstrateOCoresults in terms of their mission. Over the last decade, countries around the world have undertaken reforms with the aim of improving the relevance and effectiveness of public services and the quality of public sector management. Integrating Performance and Budgets showcases attempts by federal and state governments, as well as a mix of developed and developing countries, to introduce performance or results-oriented budgeting and management as a means to support better decision making and accountability."