The old time budget officer has been all but wiped out—the species having been deprived of its natural habitat by the great smoke cloud that began to spread after the great cataclysm of 1974 when the Budget Act began to change all the rules. This, of course, is an overstatement. But it is clear—at least from the perspective of this old dinosaur—that the job of the budget officer has changed over the years, from what many perceived of as a master of financial magic to just another serf (or supervisor) in the bureaucratic feudal system.This isnota polemic against the Budget Act or the changes that have taken place. The only thing constant about the budget processischange. Rather, it is a discussion of how these changes have affected budget officers over the decades that I have been involved in the budget bus