Strategic Budgeting offers a new way to understand how federal budget deficits developed. Rejecting the incrementalist theory of budgetary strategy, this study focuses on the micro level--the competitive process of budgeting for individual programs--to advance a theory based on the changing structural characteristics of the budgetary process itself. The book illustrates how advocates for spending have creatively taken advantage of flawed accounting practices to make costs less visible and documents how they designed programs to avoid budgetary controls. Strategic Budgeting also shows how controllers reacted to these tactics by improving accounting rules and budget procedures. The book concludes with practical recommendations for improving the process of budgeting for individual programs.