Making matters worse, these budget lines are the last to be restored when economic prospects brighten.
For the moment, the project is ensuring one thing in particular: budget lines in Washington.
They're so hooked on their idea they they hope budget lines will be created to fit their product.
"We agree with the individual budget lines, but we don't necessarily list them the same way," Mr. Lawitts said.
Its plans already feature the low cunning of snipping budget lines so the Internal Revenue Service cannot enforce key provisions of the health care reform law.
In Brussels, where careers in the bureaucracy are made and lost over control of budget lines, that has led to open feuding.
The issues go way beyond isolated budget lines, to the demands of unfunded mandates, the overreliance on property tax, the logic of small independent districts.
"We do not buy any supermarket budget lines because we know this is the type of food these families survive on every day.
Moreover, there was a surplus of $13 million last year in the other budget lines for fringe benefits, for a total surplus of $51 million.
Modeled on Southwest Airlines, the American no-frills carrier, most of these budget lines started in Europe in the 1990's after deregulation.
Private-sector companies tend to have clearly demarcated budget lines for innovation, and research and development departments with which to pursue it.
