Abstract: Internet is one of the major channels for governments to publicize information. Based on the open channel of government’s window website and the characteristics of network information spreading, this paper makes a comparison between the open budget information of American federal government and that of China’s central government in the year of 2011 from such perspectives of technicality, comprehensiveness, detailedness, dynamicness, and convenience. Although China has achieved certain development in budget opening in recent years, it is still at the initial stage; the open information of budge has the characteristics of typical fragments, lacking the institutional safeguard, and is still far away from the social expectations. Therefore, we should take the governments’ window websites as the major open channels to improve the quality of open budget information of Chinese government.

Key words: budget publicity; budget reform; government window website; budget information appraisal