On paper, the law looked good. Congress was required to adopt a budget each year. Budget committees were created in both houses. A Congressional Budget Office was created and staffed with experts to keep track of taxpayer dollars. Congress was required to pass spending and revenue bills to support the budget. And it created a process to limit a president’s ability to hold back on spending approved by Congress.

It all seemed quite sensible, and the bill passed unanimously 75 to 0 in the Senate and with only six dissenting votes in the House (a unanimity that seems remarkably quaint today). But there was actually very little consensus among lawmakers about what they thought the bill would accomplish, other than reining in Mr. Nixon.

Still, it was an easy vote. Creating a budget process, especially when there wasn’t one, was the correct thing to do politically. Unfortunately, few lawmakers appreciated what the new process would mean. For the first time, they would have to vote for or against a budget. They would be responsible for the bottom line when spending was subtracted from revenue. Invariably, there would be a deficit. And the last thing lawmakers wanted to be accountable for was all that red ink.

The law might have died a quick death but for the House speaker at the time, Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., who didn’t want the Democrat-controlled House to be blamed for abandoning the process.

Today, four decades later, the budget act remains on the books, but the problems it was intended to remedy are far worse. The House and Senate budget committees are so unpopular that many members of Congress refuse to serve on them. Congress hasn’t adopted a budget resolution in years, even though the law requires it. Debates over spending and revenue are clouded by partisanship and political showboating. Compromise is a dirty word.