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Comment by losteverything | Hacker News Reader

The part that always blew me away about governmentese was when i realized that "budget cuts" meant the program isnt getting less money than last fiscal year, but their increase YoY has been reduced!

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How else could you plan beyond one year, other than in reference to expected increases/decreases in subsequent years? Those expected increases can't be ignored in "the budget", so they are planned for and probably allocated before that fiscal year ever starts. If you reduce that increase, you absolutely cut the budget.

But to an idiot like me, the absolute amount should go down if it is a cut; not up!

So if i spent $500 eating lunch at work two years ago; $600 last year and plan/allocated $610 this year i had a "budget cut?" no. I spent more.

Thats how i think

Think of the budget as a multi-year allocation. If Budget A from 2 years ago was "$500 this year, $600 next year, $700 the year after that" and now you reduce the allocation to $610, that is a budget cut from the original Budget A.

Only if the budget was reasonable in the first place. All too often they "budget" far more money than is possible and then celebrate the cuts.

This is two different things, not helped by the multiple meanings of the word budget. If the organization makes the budget (i.e. a spending plan) without confirming the funds (or knowing them through, say, a long term understanding), and don't get what they seek, of course that's not somebody else "cutting" their budget. That's just a budget you made up not being agreed to.

But this is more about having an expectation of funding at a certain level from whatever source, and knowing that that will be your "budget" (now meaning a spending _limit_), then having that amount come down. You now have a smaller limit.

I suppose they should be talking about budget velcoties.

Ah, the mythical budget vector.

Oh hey budget space must have an L1 norm. That's neat.

Pretty soon, we'll see the new consulting offering from McKinsey: Vector-based Budgeting. Very useful helping to mathematically quantify your various business unit's planning cycles in infinite dimensional space. You thought ZBB was cool, VBB is even cooler.

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