CHANCES ARE GOOD that there will be a lot in Gov. Mark Sanford’s second executive budget to like and a lot to criticize. But we have every confidence that it will set a new standard for what a budget should be.

Indeed, it already has — not because of the way he chooses to distribute limited state funds (which we haven’t seen) but because of the way he is making and presenting his choices.

After undertaking the first exhaustive public review of state agency spending as part of his budget-writing process last year, Mr. Sanford is following up this year with the even more massive task of identifying (as best he can) every single activity state government performs. He has come up with about 1,500 discrete activities, which he is in the process of ranking according to priority. Those at the top of the list will be funded; those at the bottom will be deleted.

This is extraordinary for two reasons. The most obvious is that it goes even further than last year’s groundbreaking effort to eliminate those programs that aren’t absolutely essential — an effort that did not go very far in the status quo-oriented General Assembly.

Perhaps even more important, though, is the list Mr. Sanford has compiled. Frankly, we have no idea what to expect from this list, because we’re not aware of anyone having even contemplated creating such a list before — much less having succeeded. This type of list allows budget-writers to change their focus from funding agencies to funding activities. And unlike most agencies, which do some things well and some things not so well, we can measure the effectiveness of activities, and retain, change or eliminate them accordingly.

If this doesn’t sound extraordinary, it’s because it shouldn’t be. In a rational world, we would decide, say, that reducing the state’s infant mortality rate was a priority, we would figure out which programs are most effective at doing that, and we would fund those programs. But look at our state budget, and you can’t even figure out which of our many overlapping agencies are attempting to address this problem, much less how much they’re spending or which programs are helping.

That pattern repeats itself on issue after issue. It’s a problem of mind-set and of process.

The mind-set in budget writing is that we must first maintain the status quo, paying for everything we’ve ever paid for in the past, and then pay for new programs that sound promising or popular. Even when there’s no money, the mind-set doesn’t change: We still insist that agencies keep doing everything they’ve done in the past; we just tell them to do it with less money.

We give money to agencies rather than specific programs. Sometimes lawmakers do write instructions on how to spend the money. More often, they leave agencies to decide how to spend it, sometimes with individual lawmakers making it clear to agency directors how they want the money spent. The budget isn’t easy to read to begin with; this process makes it impossible for even experts to figure out how money’s being spent.

The mind-set is deeply ingrained in our legislative culture. Changing from one that concentrates on inputs to one that concentrates on outcomes will be difficult. But changing the process, as Mr. Sanford is doing, will make that easier. It also will make it much easier to measure why our state isn’t making progress in certain areas — thus adding enormous pressure to legislators to change the mind-set as well.