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Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. [1] [2] In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual or collective needs of the community, is classed as government final consumption expenditure.
Discretionary spending requires an annual appropriation bill, which is a piece of legislation. Discretionary spending is typically set by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and their various subcommittees. Since the spending is typically for a fixed period (usually a year), it is said to be under the discretion of the
Congress does not decide each year to increase or decrease the budget for Social Security or other earned benefit programs. Some mandatory spending programs are in effect indefinitely, but some, like agriculture programs, expire at the end of a given period. Legislation that affects mandatory spending is subject to House and Senate points of ...
However, federal spending increased relative to state and local spending as a result of World War I and World War II, and by the 1930s, state and local government spending accounted for less than one half of government spending. By 2019, federal spending was more than 20% of GDP, while state and local spending hovered around 17% of GDP.
During FY2018, the federal government spent $4.11 trillion, up $127 billion or 3.2% vs. FY2017 spending of $3.99 trillion. Spending increased for all major categories and was mainly driven by higher spending for Social Security, net interest on the debt, and defense. Spending as % GDP fell from 20.7% GDP to 20.3% GDP, equal to the 50-year average.
Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirements are statutory budget-control measures that require new tax or mandatory spending legislation to be deficit-neutral over specified periods. [29] This means that any increase in the deficit resulting from new legislation must be offset by other changes in law that reduce the deficit by an equal amount.
It is the amount of an individual's income available for spending after the essentials have been taken care of: Discretionary income = gross income – taxes – all compelled payments (bills) The term "disposable income" is often incorrectly used to denote discretionary income. For example, people commonly refer to disposable income as the ...
Deficit spending may, however, be consistent with public debt remaining stable as a proportion of GDP, depending on the level of GDP growth. [citation needed] The opposite of a budget deficit is a budget surplus; in this case, tax revenues exceed government purchases and transfer payments. For the public sector to be in deficit implies that the ...