A budget is a quantification of plan

Ryan Lizza describes (New Yorker 4 May 09) President Barack Obama's budget process, which Peter Orszag (Princeton '91) is running: "The initial discussions were highly abstract. The first Obama budget . . . 'was being designed with an eye toward what do we need to do to put the economy back on a more sustainable path? What do we need for economic growth? And what do we need to do in order to transform the country? Those were our overarching principles.' The budgeteers took a hyper-rational approach, attempting to determine policy and leave the politics and spin for later. He went on, 'One of the things that would probably surprise people is that this wasn't an effort where anybody created a top-line budget number and said, "This is the number that we have to hit, and that's just that, and we'll fit everything else in." Or, "We can't go higher than x on revenue," or, "We can’t go higher than y on spending." It was more of a functional budget than anything else: "This is what we need to do. These are our principles. These are our core beliefs. And as a result this is what our budget looks like."'"
This is the approach I learned from Jim Croft at The Field Museum: a budget is a quantification of a plan. I've tried to apply it in each position since. At the Hypocrites, we're currently part way through this -- we've identified artisitic and business goals, we're quantifying those, and the next few weeks, we'll see how the numbers match up. It seems the best way to meet your goals -- your goals, not your invoices, determine your spending.