Government Budget: Balancing Revenue, Spending and Fiscal Policy Components, Impacts

Current government expenditure includes spending on goods and services for recurring and regular provision. Such expenditures are vital for improving the quality of human resources and labor productivity. A high revenue deficit, usually, results in borrowing by the government to finance recurring and non-asset creating expenditure.

Second, taxes are a tool to limit harmful products such as tobacco and alcohol. In addition, taxes reduce negative externalities, which the government imposes when economic activities incur additional costs such as pollution. Imposing taxes increases production costs, hoping to suppress such negative effects.

Monetization of Deficit

The effects would be felt by people of all incomes but would likely be concentrated among people with low incomes. In the 20th century a high proportion of economic activity is controlled, directly or indirectly, by various levels of government (federal, or central, state, local, etc.). Thus the budget has taken on a number of other functions as well as the simple monitoring of the overall revenue and expenditure of government. Expenditure programs are now planned in considerable detail, but the sheer scale of public spending raises major control problems, and varying systems of control have been tried in different countries. Taxation is used not only to raise revenue but also to redistribute income and to encourage or discourage certain activities. Government borrowing, in order to finance recurring deficits or wars, is so substantial that budgetary policy has important effects on capital markets and on interest and credit generally.

  • Committees of jurisdiction must meet the dollar targets in the budget resolution but have discretion as to how to meet the targets.
  • Capital receipts are defined as payments that cause the government’s assets to decline or its liabilities to rise.
  • However, taxes are essential to finance government spending on public services such as education, health, and infrastructure.
  • Consequently, in most countries large expenditures on military items are often treated perfunctorily while the activities of civil servants receive inordinate amounts of attention.
  • Reconciliation was originally intended to reduce budget deficits, and there are several unique rules governing the reconciliation process.

Government revenue: where does the money come from?

The difference in federal expenditures distributed to states and money paid to the federal government by individuals and businesses in the form of taxes is called the balance of payments. The report includes preliminary estimates of federal revenue and spending data for fiscal year 2022. In the United States the budget for each fiscal year contains detailed information on the outlays intended by the federal government and the receipts expected, including those from trust funds.

Economic impact

This raised the possibility that by changing these levels the government could use its fiscal policy to achieve full employment and reduce economic fluctuations. This stabilization function has been used by many countries, with varying degrees of success, to expand the economy out of recession and to control inflationary pressures. In the United Kingdom, for example, postwar policy involved a sequence of “stop-go” moves by government for stabilization; unfortunately these often occurred too late and had unintended destabilizing effects.

Revenue Expenditure

  • For example, the government adopts a budget deficit to stimulate economic growth through lower taxes and greater spending, such as on infrastructure.
  • For instance, offering incentives promotes the usage of “Khadi products.” Contrarily, the Government imposes high taxes to deter the manufacturing of dangerous consumer items (such as alcohol, cigarettes, etc.).
  • The government wants to redistribute the nation’s resources in a way that is more profitable and welfare-focused, as well as more economically and socially advantageous.
  • This is a relatively new problem for the United States, which enjoyed a balance-of-payments surplus until the 1960s.

The total indebtedness of a company is monitored closely by its shareholders, who are also critical of future forecasts of profits and growth. Individuals who fail to budget adequately are equally closely monitored by bank managers and credit agencies, and those with complicated affairs can draw upon skilled professional help. Finally, they shop for more goods and services, increasing aggregate demand. For example, building roads lowers logistics costs and stimulates the economic activity of local residents. Taxation serves several purposes beyond simply raising revenue for the government budget.

There is virtually no consideration of the budget as a whole by the committee as a whole. Revenues fall under the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee of the House and are considered separately and possibly even at a different time from appropriations. The upper house of Congress, the Senate, plays a secondary role with respect to the budget. Its Appropriations Committee acts as a kind of court of appeal from the House Appropriations Committee. The committee chairmen are among the most influential members of Congress, and the committee staffs are experienced and skillful.

Government budgets & fiscal policy

In a coalition government, the differing opinions are tackled through compromise and contracts approach where the coalition parties keeps the check on the budget process ensuring that it lies within the boundaries of the agreed contract. The infamous fallout between the ruling UPA and the Trinamool Congress over the Railway Budget last year is worth citing in reference to the current discussion. Fiscal deficit is a measure of how much the government needs to borrow from the market to meet its expenditure when its resources are inadequate. At the same time, the staunchest fiscal conservatives in both the House and Senate, many aligned with the Freedom Caucus, are pushing for even more cuts.

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These criticisms of the national budgetary process are more valid in some countries than in others. The extent of scrutiny of the national budget varies widely, and governments vary in how ready they are to provide relevant information and to what degree they try to obscure features of the budget by complicated and disjointed presentation. The United States has a relatively open budget, which is presented as a whole and subjected to congressional scrutiny. In contrast, the government of the United Kingdom presents the budget in different documents at different times, and, although subject to parliamentary scrutiny, it is rarely changed. Because households have more money to spend, this increases their demand for goods and services.

In addition, the government raises taxation in order to redistribute income within the private sector of the economy. It taxes some activities and subsidizes others—through investment credits, for example. On a larger scale, it uses the benefit and social security system types of government budget to make payments to needy individuals and raises taxes in order to subsidize those who warrant it.

These expenditures are non-recurring and include spending on infrastructure, technology, and buildings. The budget helps control inflation by adjusting fiscal policies, such as taxation and government spending, to manage demand in the economy. Capital receipts are defined as payments that cause the government’s assets to decline or its liabilities to rise. It comprises of money obtained from borrowings or loan repayments by states as well as money made from the sale of assets (or disinvestment), such as shares of publicly traded companies. A budget is typically created and re-evaluated on a regular basis and is described as an estimation of income and expenses over a given future period of time.

These expenditures are recurring and typically cover costs such as salaries, utilities, and the purchase of goods and services that are consumed within the fiscal year. By allocating funds to public projects and sectors, the budget helps create job opportunities and reduces unemployment rates. It is essential for any government to plan a budget as it allocates various resources across the nation to ensure economic progress and stability.

Government budget, forecast by a government of its expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time. In national finance, the period covered by a budget is usually a year, known as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. When the British chancellor of the Exchequer makes his annual financial statement, he is said to “open” his budget, or receptacle of documents and accounts. The overall proportion of national income that is collected in taxes, raised from profits on government activities, or borrowed varies widely in the developed nations. This variation reflects different national decisions concerning the proportion of a nation’s activity deemed most appropriate to have carried out by the various levels of government or by government agencies. Much of the variation occurs because of choices over the provision of health care (mostly public in the United Kingdom, mostly private in the United States) and over the level and importance of transfer payments.

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