I. Прочитайте текст. Опираясь на информацию текста, найдите
ответы на следующие вопросы:
What kind of information does the US national budget document contain? ____________________________________________________________
2. What is the general procedure of submitting budget to the Congress?
___________________________________________________________
3. What are the roles of the committees involved in budget making?
____________________________________________________________
II. Письменно своими словами изложите основное содержание текста
на русском языке.
III. Задайте к тексту 6 – 7 вопросов разного типа.
PUBLIC POLICY AND THE BUDGET
(1) For most people the national budget is boring. To national politicians it is an exciting script for high drama. The budget is a political battlefield, on which politicians and the programs they support wage war. The national budget is a complicated document. In different countries it is prepared by different authorities. For example, in the United States the President prepares budget and the Congress approves it. The Congress as a body might disagree with presidential spending priorities.
(2) The budget of the United States Government is an annual financial document that the president is required to submit to the Congress each January. The budget may contain up to fifteen hundred pages long and weigh more than five pounds, including appendixes. Broadly, the budget defines budget authorities (how much government agencies are authorized to spend for programs), budget outlays, or expenditures (how much they are expected to spend), and receipts (how much is expected in taxes and other revenues). The budget document contains more than numbers. It also explains individual spending programs in terms of national needs and agency objectives, and it analyzes proposed taxes and other receipts. Its publication is usually anxiously awaited by reporters, lobbyists, and political analysts eager to learn the president’s plan for government spending in the coming year.
(3) The budget that the president submits to the Congress each winter is the end product of a process that begins the previous spring under the supervision of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB is located within the Executive Office of the President and is headed by a director who is appointed by the president with the approval of the Senate. The OMB, with a staff of over five hundred, is one of the most powerful figures in government. The OMB initiates the budget process each spring by meeting with the president to discuss the economic situation and his budgetary priorities. It then sends broad economic guidelines to every government agency and requests their initial projections of funds needed for the next fiscal year. The OMB assembles this information and makes recommendations to the president. By summer, the agencies are asked to prepare budgets based on the new guidelines. By the fall, they submit their formal budgets to the OMB, where budget analysts scrutinize agency requests for both costs and consistency with the president’s legislative program. A lot of politicking goes at this stage, as agency heads try to go around the OMB to plead for their pet projects with presidential advisers and perhaps even with the President himself.
(4) The voluminous document is carefully printed and neatly bound. It looks very much like a finished product, but it is far from final. Now the Congress must approve the budget. The process of approving the budget is full of traditional procedures overlaid with structural reforms.
(5) Traditionally, the tasks of budget making are divided among a number of committees; there are three types of committees involved in budgeting: tax committees, authorization committees, and appropriation committees. The tax committees are responsible for raising the revenues to run the government. So, they consider all proposals for taxes, tariffs, and other receipts contained in the president’s budget. Authorization committees authorize spending. There are nineteen authorization committees in the House and sixteen in the Senate that can authorize spending, each in its area of responsibility. In recent years, however, power has shifted from the authorization committees to the appropriation committees. Appropriation committees decide which of the programs approved by authorization committees will actually be funded [that is given money to spend]. The budget committees are supposed to propose an initial budget resolution that sets overall revenue and spending levels, broken down into twenty-one different “budget functions”, among them national defense, agriculture and health.
Примечание:
script (n) текст, сценарий.
wage war (v) вести войну
submit (v) представлять на рассмотрение
budget authorities бюджетные полномочия (разрешение на
расходование денег)
outlays (n) (pl) издержки, расходы
receipts (n) (pl) денежные поступления, доходы
Office of Management
and Budget, OMB Aдминистративно - бюджетное управление
(при президенте США)
Executive Office Исполнительное управление президента США.
of the President Предназначено для разработки правительствен-
ной политики и координации на высшем
уровне деятельности исполнительных органов.
guideline (n) директива, руководящие указания
fiscal year (am.) финансовый год
scrutinize (v) внимательно рассматривать
consistency (n) согласованность
politicking (n) политические, закулисные игры, “возня”
pet program программа, за которую ходатайствуют
voluminous (adj) массивный; многотомный
bound (adj) переплетенный, в переплете
Tax committee Комитет по налогам и сборам
Appropriation committee Комитет по бюджетным ассигнованиям (США)
UNIT NINE
Text A CAREERS IN CIVIL SERVICE
(1) Each department of Government has a large staff of professional civil servants who do most of the day -to -day work of running the government affairs. Government workforce is quite diverse, each employee with his portion of responsibility and scope of activities. Civil service consists of three main grades – the administrative grade, the executive grade and the clerical one. All the grades except the clerical one fall into three classes from the first to the third. The difference in salary of officials holding the first and the third class in some countries is twenty fold.
(2) The administrative grade is the highest in the hierarchy of civil service and is assisted by the expert advice of members of specialist classes, for example legal or scientific. It is composed of the chief officials in charge of departments or ministries as well as the members of administrative bodies and the councillors who generally act as advisers to ministers. Administrative executives are involved in direct public policy decision-making and evaluation of public programmes on the national level. They have the power to set out policies, outline future plans and select procedures and activities.
(3)The duties of government employees in the executive grade are to execute laws, rules and regulations in order to carry out what has been planned or decided by government for public good. Actually, the major task of executives in government organizations or agencies is to put into life public policies in conformity with the central government directives and then to report to their seniors. To deal effectively with some economic, social or technological problem a public executive delegates authority to the professionals who are experts in a large number of specialized occupational fields ranging from public education and civil engineering to medicine and finance.
(4) People entering the lowest, the clerical class of the civil service, are normally clerks and typists who deal with keeping records, paper filing and correspondence. They prepare information and papers for their superiors and for the general public. Their functions are entirely supportive.
(5) According to the Table of Ranks of the civil service of Russian Federation there are (from top downwards) full state councillors, higher state councillors, state councillors, senior reviewers and reviewers. Higher public administrators as well as the councillors are the professional advisers and perform advisory and supervisory functions. Their job is to be ready to serve the ministers in power and advise them on social and economic priorities. They are expected to warn and assist those who formulate state policy. Administrative executives of this level are supposed to have vision and concepts on public policy approaches. The field of activities of a reviewer is a comprehensive research analysis making available new information for the seniors to take a decision.
СЛОВАРЬ АКТИВНОЙ ЛЕКСИКИ:
staff (n) персонал, штат, личный состав, сотрудники
run (v) руководить, управлять, вести (дело, предприятие)
workforce (n) штат сотрудников
scope of activities сфера деятельности, полномочия, компетенция
grade (n) категория, квалификационный разряд, класс, уровень
clerical (аdj) вспомогательный, младший, канцелярский
twenty fold.(adv) в двадцать раз больше
chief official государственной чиновник высокого ранга
be in charge of отвечать за работу, нести ответственность
adviser (n) советник, консультант
administrative executive административное должностное лицо
set out policies формировать политику
execute (v) выполнять, приводить в исполнение, осуществлять
executive body орган исполнительной власти
for public good на благо общества
in conformity with в соответствии c
directive (n ) директива, указание
senior (n) главный, старший по должности, начальник
delegate authority делегировать, передавать полномочия, наделять
полномочиями, поручать
public executive чиновник государственной службы
paper filing регистрация документов
general public посетители, представители общественности
rank (n) звание, ранг, чин, служебное положение;
административно- правовой статус
Table of Ranks Реестр государственных должностей, Перечень
должностей, (обычно утверждается президентом);
Табель о рангах
Full state councillor Действительный государственный советник
(высшая должность)
Higher state councillor Государственный советник Российской
Федерации (главная должность)
State councillor Советник (Российской Федерации)
(ведущая должность)
Senior reviewer Старший советник государственный службы
Reviewer ( n) Референт государственной службы
administrator (n) административное должностное лицо,
чиновник, администратор, управляющий
approach (n) подход, концепция, решение
make available предоставлять, делать доступным
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