Action: The President should begin the budget process with an executive budget resolution, setting broad policy priorities and allocating funds by function for each agency.14 Federal managers should focus primarily on the content of the budget, not on the process. A new executive budget resolution will help them do that. The President should issue a directive in early 1994 to mandate the use of such a resolution in developing his fiscal year 1996 budget. It will turn the executive budget process upside down. To develop the resolution, officials from the White House policy councils will meet with OMB and agency officials. In those sessions, the administration's policy leadership will make decisions on overall spending and revenue levels, deficit reduction targets, and funding allocations for major inter-agency policy initiatives. The product of these meetings--a resolution completed by August--will provide agencies with funding ceilings and allocations for major policy missions. Then, bureaus will generate their own budget estimates, now knowing their agency's priorities and fiscal limits. Our own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tried a similar approach in the 1970s as part of a zero-based budgeting trial run. Although zero-based budgeting fell short, participants said, two important advantages emerged: a new responsiveness to internal customer needs and a commitment to final decisions. When participants voted to cut research and development funds because they felt researchers ignored program needs, researchers began asking programs managers what kind of research would support their efforts. EPA also found that, after its leaders had agonized over funding, they remained committed to common decisions. Critics may view the executive budget resolution process as a top-down tool that will stifle creative, bottom-up suggestions for funding options. We think otherwise. The resolution will render top officials responsible for budget totals and policy decisions, but will encourage lower-level ingenuity to devise funding options within those guidelines. By adopting this plan, we will help discourage non-productive micro-management by senior department and agency officials.