G15

Many people are concerned about large deficits in the federal budget. Rarely does the government balance its budget.

(a) Define balanced budget.

Balanced budget means that the amount of expenditure is the same as the amount of revenue, that there is no deficit or surplus.

(b) Define federal entitlements.

Federal entitlements are federal payments to a specific group of people that is mandatory and or legally obligated to be dispersed to these people under certain criteria.

(c) Identify an entitlement and explain how entitlements are a barrier to the federal government achieving a balanced budget.

An entitlement would be receiving social security checks. Entitlements are a barrier to the federal government achieving a balanced budget in that they are money promised by the government, money that must be given to the people or else the government would be breaking its own laws by not giving it out because it's permanent.

(d) Describe a consequence of large budget deficits.

A budget deficit is when the amount of expenditures exceeds the amount of revenue. A consequence of large budget deficits is that it makes it hard for the government to create new policies because it is too busy trying to fix or compensate for the policies it already created.

(e) Find the most recent budget numbers. What was our projected revenue for 2012? What were our expenditures? What was the budget deficit? Cite your source.

Our revenue was 5.4 trillion dollars and the expenditures was 6.1 trillion, so the deficit was  0.7 trillion dollars.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2013USrn
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/.

(f) What is the total national debt? Cite your source.

The total national debt is $17,467,228,205,267

http://www.concordcoalition.org/issues/indicators/us-total-national-debt