The Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund are trust funds that provide for payment of Social Security benefits administered by the United States Social Security Administration.
Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit, the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budget of a government, private company, or individual. A central point of controversy in economics, government deficit spending was first identified as a necessary economic tool by John Maynard Keynes in the wake of the Great Depression.
The government budget balance, also referred to as the general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the difference between government revenues and spending. For a government that uses accrual accounting the budget balance is calculated using only spending on current operations, with expenditure on new capital assets excluded. A positive balance is called a government budget surplus, and a negative balance is a government budget deficit. A government budget presents the government's proposed revenues and spending for a financial year.
The national debt of the United States is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to Treasury security holders. The national debt at any point in time is the face value of the then-outstanding Treasury securities that have been issued by the Treasury and other federal agencies. The terms "national deficit" and "national surplus" usually refer to the federal government budget balance from year to year, not the cumulative amount of debt. In a deficit year the national debt increases as the government needs to borrow funds to finance the deficit, while in a surplus year the debt decreases as more money is received than spent, enabling the government to reduce the debt by buying back some Treasury securities. In general, government debt increases as a result of government spending and decreases from tax or other receipts, both of which fluctuate during the course of a fiscal year. There are two components of gross national debt:
A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, other impacts, assets, liabilities and cash flows. Companies, governments, families, and other organizations use budgets to express strategic plans of activities in measurable terms.
The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is an agreement, among all the 27 member states of the European Union (EU), to facilitate and maintain the stability of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Based primarily on Articles 121 and 126 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, it consists of fiscal monitoring of member states by the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, and the issuing of a yearly Country-Specific Recommendation for fiscal policy actions to ensure a full compliance with the SGP also in the medium-term. If a member state breaches the SGP's outlined maximum limit for government deficit and debt, the surveillance and request for corrective action will intensify through the declaration of an Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP); and if these corrective actions continue to remain absent after multiple warnings, a member state of the eurozone can ultimately also be issued economic sanctions. The pact was outlined by a European Council resolution in June 1997, and two Council regulations in July 1997. The first regulation "on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies", known as the "preventive arm", entered into force 1 July 1998. The second regulation "on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure", sometimes referred to as the "dissuasive arm" but commonly known as the "corrective arm", entered into force 1 January 1999.
A balanced budget amendment or debt brake is a constitutional rule requiring that a state cannot spend more than its income. It requires a balance between the projected receipts and expenditures of the government.
An Australian federal budget is a document that sets out the estimated revenues and expenditures of the Australian Treasury in the following financial year, proposed conduct of Australian government operations in that period, and its fiscal policy for the forward years. Budgets are called by the year in which they are presented to Parliament and relate to a financial year that commences on the following 1 July and ends on 30 June of the following year, so that the 2024 budget brought down in May 2024 relates to the 2024/25 financial year.
A balanced budget is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists. More generally, it is a budget that has no budget deficit, but could possibly have a budget surplus. A cyclically balanced budget is a budget that is not necessarily balanced year-to-year but is balanced over the economic cycle, running a surplus in boom years and running a deficit in lean years, with these offsetting over time.
PAYGO is the practice of financing expenditures with funds that are currently available rather than borrowed.
A fiscal adjustment is a reduction in the government primary budget deficit, and it can result from a reduction in government expenditures, an increase in tax revenues, or both simultaneously.
The United States budget comprises the spending and revenues of the U.S. federal government. The budget is the financial representation of the priorities of the government, reflecting historical debates and competing economic philosophies. The government primarily spends on healthcare, retirement, and defense programs. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office provides extensive analysis of the budget and its economic effects. CBO estimated in February 2024 that Federal debt held by the public is projected to rise from 99 percent of GDP in 2024 to 116 percent in 2034 and would continue to grow if current laws generally remained unchanged. Over that period, the growth of interest costs and mandatory spending outpaces the growth of revenues and the economy, driving up debt. Those factors persist beyond 2034, pushing federal debt higher still, to 172 percent of GDP in 2054.
A government budget is a projection of the government's revenues and expenditure for a particular period, often referred to as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. Government revenues mostly include taxes while expenditures consist of government spending. A government budget is prepared by the Central government or other political entity. In most parliamentary systems, the budget is presented to the legislature and often requires approval of the legislature. The government implements economic policy through this budget and realizes its program priorities. Once the budget is approved, the use of funds from individual chapters is in the hands of government ministries and other institutions. Revenues of the state budget consist mainly of taxes, customs duties, fees, and other revenues. State budget expenditures cover the activities of the state, which are either given by law or the constitution. The budget in itself does not appropriate funds for government programs, hence the need for additional legislative measures. The word budget comes from the Old French brunette.
Fund accounting is an accounting system for recording resources whose use has been limited by the donor, grant authority, governing agency, or other individuals or organisations or by law. It emphasizes accountability rather than profitability, and is used by nonprofit organizations and by governments. In this method, a fund consists of a self-balancing set of accounts and each are reported as either unrestricted, temporarily restricted or permanently restricted based on the provider-imposed restrictions.
The Swiss federal budget refers to the annual revenue and expenditures of the Swiss Confederation. As budget expenditures are issued on a yearly basis by the government, the federal council, and have to be approved by the parliament, they reflect the country's Fiscal policy.
The federal budget of Russia is the leading element of the budget system of Russia. It is a major state financial plan for the fiscal year, which has the force of law after its approval by the Russian parliament and signed into law by the President of Russia.
The Budget of the Government of Puerto Rico is the proposal by the Governor of Puerto Rico to the Legislative Assembly which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year, beginning on July 1 and ending on June 30 of the following year. This proposal is established by Article IV of the Constitution of Puerto Rico and is presented in two forms:
Germany's balanced budget amendment, also referred to as the debt brake, is a fiscal rule enacted in 2009 by the First Merkel cabinet. The law, which is in Article 109, paragraph 3 and Article 115 of the Basic Law, Germany's constitution, is designed to restrict structural budget deficits at the federal level and limit the issuance of government debt. The rule restricts annual structural deficits to 0.35% of GDP.
Government spending in the United States is the spending of the federal government of the United States and the spending of its state and local governments.
In German budget law, an off-budget fund is an independent additional budget that is intended exclusively to fulfill individual, limited tasks of the federal government in an emergency situation, is not part of the regular budget and thus is not subject to the debt brake. Management and financial responsibility for the off-budget entities is provided by the federal government, the funds are set up and managed in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Budget Code (BHO). In the 2020s the use of off-budget funds dramatically expanded, with the total (multi-year) potential deficits by the end of fiscal 2022 coming to 400 billion euro, about 10% of 2023 GDP. For comparison, the debt brake limit would only allow borrowing of 13 billion euro in 2023.
