No single value defines a budget. Rather, a budget is many values, competing and clashing over common currency, suspended for a moment to showcase a normative expression of where we intend to go as a nation—and how. In our government, the budget is also a proposal, the President’s pitch deck to the holders of the purse strings. And until Congress acts, there is no billing to the budget. ‘We the People’ use this annual process to determine how we tax ourselves, pay off our debts, and invest in our future—how we come together as a one people around shared challenges and opportunities. In all of this, we have help: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Despite the budget’s existential tie to the administrative state and OMB’s central role in the annual process surrounding the budget—from development to execution, legal literature devotes little attention to either. In her article, Prof. Eloise Pasachoff attempts to reverse this inattentiveness. The treatment is trenchant and thoughtful. Yet, perhaps borne of epistemological reasons rooted in the OMB-opacity her article bemoans, the treatment— at times—flattens context and complexity. With aim at adding more completeness by acknowledging context and complexity that the article either misses or minimizes, I offer three global comments regarding: (I) atomization, (II) accountability, and (III) agenda setting. The first focuses primarily on OMB’s budget execution role, the last focuses on OMB’s budget development role, and the comment on accountability has application across both.

Originally published in Environmental Law Reporter on August 1, 2017.