Government Spending Research Paper

Overspending is a pertinent problem facing the lawmakers in Congress. In 2012 discretionary spending reached $1.3 trillion and mandatory spending $2 trillion, while only bringing in $2.5 trillion in revenue. Since the turn of the century back in 2000, non-mandatory spending by the government has topped out a whopping $16.1 trillion just in the past 13 years (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). This persistent overspending on programs and services that are not necessary to the functionality of the country is what is causing the deficit to rise year after year. To remedy this issue the government must either increase the revenue it brings in through taxes and trade or reduce the amount of money it spend or perhaps even both. In 2012 thirty-one cents of every dollar that Washington spent was borrowed (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). Most of which went to large programs such as Social Security and Medicare and if these large, growing programs, or just the budget in general, do not undergo financial reform it could spell disaster for the economy and fiscal state of the nation.

To begin with , budgeting in the public setting clearly have political implications ,as Rubin discussed in her writings “ The politics of public budgeting”. In the government’s effort to build an audacious spy satellite , the government surpassed it’s budget limit for a failed attempt on the creation of “F.I.A.” During this time the C.I.A and the government was in a rush to build this brand new spy program in order to spy on the soviet union. Although , after a while congress realized there were no progress in building the spy program and wanted to shut it down others in the political setting continuously paid for the project to keep it going. According to Phillip Taubman “ It took two more years, several more review panels , and billions more dollars before the government finally killed this project.”

The federal government has attempted to slice into the Department of Education’s budget since it was established in 1979. The department was originally founded in 1867, but soon became demoted since the government was afraid it would have too much power. “In the 1860s, a budget of $15,000 and four employees handled education fact-finding. By 1965, the Office of Education had more than 2,100 employees and a budget of $1.5 billion. As of mid-2010, the Department has nearly 4,300 employees and a budget of about $60 billion” (An overview of the U.S. Department of Education, 2010). To provide some comparable insight, in 2013 the Department of Defense’s budget of $663.8 billion (U.S. Department of Defense, 2009).

“The federal budget is the yearly plan for how the US government will spend the money it takes from taxes and borrowing.” After thoroughly analyzing the federal budget from 2012, it is unquestionably evident that a majority of the money is being put into a few major categories, leaving room for the rest of the smaller categories to be financially neglected. Is this fair? It seems that the money could be more fairly distributed, and that there is room for cuts in some of the larger categories, to improve the littler ones. In each of the three budget clusters, the US Government should make adjustments in the way it is distributing money; changes involving the big five, the middle

On October 19, 2017, the Senate approved a budget that would aid Republican efforts to create tax cuts in a vote of 51-49. In essence, this budget would expand the federal deficit by 1.5 trillion dollars over a span of 10 years. According to Republicans, the intent of these tax cuts is to create more jobs as well as providing more income to Americans as a whole. However, many Democrats are starkly opposed to this budget because of how it will increase the federal deficit as well as reducing the potency of federal revenue provided by taxes. With the budget being approved by the Senate, it is now up to the House to adopt its version of the budget to officially make it into law.

“To budget is to fight over money and the things money buys” (Document A). The federal budget is adjusted every year and has to follow certain criteria set forward by the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble sets five goals that the budget must fulfill, these goals are: to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. Furthermore, it is difficult to decide what clusters of the federal budget to allocate money to in order to meet the five goals of the Preamble which are “The Big Five”, “The Middle Five”, and “The Little Guys.” In each of the three budget clusters,

If our government didn’t spend anything would we have any type increase in our economy? I do not thing we would. Who would pay for the necessity things we need in order to thrive as a country. How would we keep up with our transportation system, invest in our future or keep us from totalitarianism? We have to have some type involvement from the government. I the 2016 election outcome came due to the fact that a lot of people felt like President Obama and his administration implicated too many policies that increase government spending. Such policies geared towards health care reform and income inequality. All in which increased taxes for each individual. I think a lot of people feel like the last eight years of government spending cost the tax payers a lot of unnecessary money. People were paying taxed for programs they didn’t support or agree with. “In fiscal year 2015, the federal government spent $3.7 trillion, amounting to 21 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Of that $3.7 trillion, over $3.2 trillion was financed by federal revenues. The remaining amount ($438 billion) was financed by borrowing. As the chart below shows, three major areas of spending each make up about one-fifth of the budget” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). This article outlines the major areas of spending which are

Spending and Revenue are divided into ten categories, such as Investments, General Government, etc. Choose three spending categories and one revenue category to write about. What decisions to spend or cut did you make in each of the categories that you chose? Explain your choices. Be sure to read the pro/con arguments for each decision. Which arguments did you find most convincing?

A number of different methods can explain policymaker’s decisions to provide grants for programs. The programs can be implemented that can increase efficiency through various activities. It is better if the decisions are made on the basis of economic efficiency that have more information. Whether any government like federal or local or state make decisions in more efficient way they have to face circumstances that depends who gets benefits and who bears the cost.1 If the federal government have not sufficient information to implement the decision but they have goal to make program successful then they can take information available at the state and local

Katherine Beckett. 1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics, Oxford University Press. Published in the Crime and Public Policy Series, edited by Norval Morris and Michael Tonry.

Are we as American citizens receiving what we expect from our government or are we demanding too much from it. It seems that over the last several years we have demanded that our government has to find ways of doing more with less. As a result of the ever-increasing demands our government is forced to face, according to Professor Paul C. Light, the American government is ill executed and the federal service is less energetic than ever before (Paul, 2008). Thus, it seems that we as Americans are not getting what we expect from our government. It is overworked; load with bureaucratic problems, forcing federal service workers to more with less. However problematic our government is, through out its history, it has created many different

Government efficacy to perform all of its current functions, and programs requires as large of a government as we have at present. The fact of the matter is that the federal government has overstepped its boundaries and has taken up tasks that are not meant for the government, but for the people. Issues such as health care, public education, and social security are prime examples of the government taking over tasks that are not innately for the government, but each citizen's responsibility. Many people do not see a problem with this, but there are several flaws that come with this including the requirement of a larger federal government, decreased individual freedom, and increased deficit, increased deficit spending, and increased taxes.

You cannot say whether spending is too high or too low, or whether taxes have been cut too far or not enough. All you can really say is whether the Government Party should be re-elected, or replaced with an Opposition Party.

Taxes are the dollars that we pay to government to supply the services that are not or can not be provided through the free enterprise system. Taxes have been around since the beginning of organized societies. They come in various forms. Most common are income taxes both federal and local government. These taxes are assessed on the amount of income a person earns. Other taxes come in the form of user taxes; these taxes are imposed on the people that are using the goods being taxed, such as gas tax, alcohol tax, sales tax, and luxury taxes. Property taxes make up the major revenues for local and city governments. Furthering the burden of taxation are taxes that are attached to such bills as utility

Americans could spend so much more money on more important things such as improving the schools around the nation or educating our children about drugs and other important issues, however, the governments of the United States are wasting the tax dollars of hard-working citizens, on a policy that isn’t effective.