Legislative Oversight Of The Government Budget Model Study

Government budget is the carrier for legislative oversight, so government budget and legislative oversight on budget have great relationship. Both Principle–Angent theory and the democratic theories hold the view that protecting public interest should be the highest aim of government budget and the legislative oversight, otherwise, the legislature can not fulfill its accountability. In practice there are other oversight principles including the government, judiciary, audit and social organizations. Compared with legislative oversight, these kinds of oversight do not have strong authority which is urgently needed for oversight on government budget since budget is monopolistic. Under the frame of Principle-Agent legislative oversight is quite important. However it does not mean the legislative oversight itself can protect the public interest,on the contrary, other kinds of oversight are also needed.Basically all countraries have set up the legislative oversight system, measured by the budget amendment and budget oversight tools, the ability of legislative oversight has great difference. Undoutedly there are many factors, among them,the macro factors are very important, i.e.,the political, economic,cultural and legislature's professional situations.U.S and U.K have established perfect system of legislative oversight. U.K is the first country which set up the budgeting system and paliament sytem, and it has great influence on other countries. At present the legislative oversight in U.K is weakening, and it is affected by the cabinet system. Compared with U.K the ability of legislative oversight in U.S is strenthening, the president system contributes on it.Since Qing dynasty the government budget systym has been set up, but the development is very slow. So far as the People's Congress system set up the legislative oversight became standard. But the budget was not set up from bottom to top the budget is not democratic. Although people's congress has high rights the power is not strong.To strengthen legislative oversight China may strengthen the people's congress and normalize the budgeting system. For the people's congress it can strengthen its orgnization , improve the human resource and optimize the process and methods. For the government budgeting it may become more universal, transparent, detailed and solemn. By this way the budget can provide good conditions for legislative oversight. To be more universal the extra -budget should be enbodied in the budget and the department budget should be implemented.To be more transparent, China may take international systems as references, at first the"government'should be clarified, secondly more budget information should be provided in the budget documents. To be more detailed the classification of government revenue and expenditure should be normalized and the process of bottom-up should be used. To be more solemn, the surplus of revenue should be managed, the budget law should be revised, the pre-budget should be managed and the budget adjustment should be more standardized.