The explanation distinguishes pre-1937 gun development from the later urgency of wartime production. An annual budget can encourage a department to spend its allocation because unspent money becomes a reason to reduce the following year's funding. Saving money for future problems is therefore difficult. In this interpretation, the incentive helps explain repeated expenditure on gun development even when a more deliberate standardisation program would be useful.
Notable Point · 4:01:48-4:03:06
Annual budgets and the incentive to keep developing guns
Annual spending rules can encourage immediate gun-development expenditure by making unspent money a reason to reduce the next allocation.