Could President Eisenhower Fix the U.S. Budget?

Eisenhower Presidential Library

The public is invited to attend the September Lunch & Learn scheduled for Wednesday, September 27, at noon central time either in person or online. The program will be held in the library building indoor courtyard and will begin promptly at noon. Guests are encouraged to arrive by 11:45 a.m. A light box-lunch will be served on a first come, first served basis.

Dr. Philip Joyce will join us virtually to discuss whether budgetary management has become more difficult since the Eisenhower Administration. The federal debt was 44 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) when President Eisenhower submitted his final budget in 1961. This represented a decline from 60 percent when Ike took office. The debt ceiling has increased significantly since that time and currently stands at almost 100 percent of GDP. This growth trend is projected to reach 180 percent by the year 2050. This situation has resulted in part from a substantial change in both the budget process and the broader political environment since President Eisenhower left office.

Dr. Joyce is a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. He is the author of The Congressional Budget Office: Honest Numbers, Power, and Policymaking (Georgetown University Press, 2011), and several publications focusing on public budgeting and performance management. Dr. Joyce has over 12 years of public service including five years with the United States Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Professor Joyce is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and received the Aaron Wildavsky Award for lifetime scholarship in public budgeting and finance in 2012.