What is a budget deficit? What does that actually mean to say the US has a deficit of $482 billion?

Question

Well I hope the government was not planning on buying a new car! With a credit like that, well that makes my credit look good, sad...so sad.

Answer 1

"A budget deficit occurs when an entity (often a government) spends more money than it takes in. The opposite of a budget deficit is a budget surplus. Debt is essentially an accumulated flow of deficits. In other words, a deficit is a flow and debt is a stock."

Answer 2

It means that China owns us!    

No one ever mentions that we were in the black when Clinton left office!

.

Answer 3

It means that the government has over spent,put on credit, about half a trillion dollars. Practically speaking the country has a  bad credit rating and it will cost much more to run the

government than it should. The value of the dollar is down(won't buy as much). Future administrations will have their hands tied because of the huge deficit and so much money will spent just to pay down that debt, money that would be better spent on other things. The country receives nothing for the money being spent on debt service. It is my belief that this was the plan all along and a way of forcing the reduction and elimination of social services and other entitlements that the right is loath to support. Say good bye to S.S. Medicare and the others. The country is falling apart

(infrastructure,road and bridges,dams and airports) will not get the needed repairs. Furthermore the country is just a few or one disaster away from bankruptcy and you can thank a republican for the mess that the country is in.

To me the country cannot afford the luxury of having a republican in the W.H. for the foreseeable future.

Answer 4

I remember a while back I took a Criminal Justice class and I had to do a report of a topic I chose. The topic I picked concerned funding for the Criminal Justice System at large. Anyone who has taken classes in criminal justice will tell you the whole system is gradually collapsing, and no one is doing anything to stop it. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, and there is a great deal of discrimination when it comes to the poor. So called "white collar criminals" cost the nation more money every year than poor criminals, yet white collar criminal get sent to "resort" prisons, where all criminals that are poor get lumped together whether they are drug dealers, murderers, sexual predators, or whatever.

But, I am going away from my original point. The point of the report was to examine why does the government not give the justice system it needs, and how they could get that money. One interesting thing I've noticed is that while Clinton was in office, we had over 500 billion in surplus with a projected 7 trillion over the next ten years (roughly from 1999-2010). However, while Clinton was in office, he did not increase the budget of the Justice System substantially enough to fix these problems. The budget did increase somewhat for the DoJ, but still not enough. Bush, who inherited this surplus, didn't give the DoJ what it needed either.

So, to sum it all up, Clinton when leaving office had over 500 billion but just let it sit there. Bush entering office had a little bit more, but did nothing to fix the Justice system. The fact is that the government collects more money every year, yet every year they either overspend in the case of the Republicans, or build up a surplus but don't spend it as with thee Democrats. Neither side has the will or desire to fix social security, the DoJ, our failing education systems in urban communities, or to help the poor. Many would argue that the recent Tax Stimulus Checks were to help the poor, however they were meant to help the rich by putting money in the hand of the poor who the figured would rush out and buy products sold by the rich. The government encouraged immediate, irresponsible spending rather than saving that money and putting it in the bank. And, besides that, 600-1200 for the average family during these times is practically a joke. It was meant to boost profits for corperations and to bolster the stock market, not help the poor.

This is why I'm niether a Democrat or a Republican. I support no party all out because niether care about me or my family. It's all corrupt.

Take care and God bless

--------------------------------------...

And by the way, people think the current war in Iraq is the cause of our current financial woes. However, the war in Iraq is being fought on Suplemental Bills, which are basically loans we pay back later on. While the war may not be costing us much money right now, later on when the debts come due, it could lead to a financial catastophy.

Answer 5

The main thing to understand is the difference between the budget deficit and the national debt.

A budget deficit simply means the government had more expenditures than it collected in revenue in a budget year. For example, if the federal government collected $500 billion from taxes, tariffs, fees, etc, but spent $600 billion, that would create a budget deficit of $100 billion.

So in your example, to say we are currently running a deficit of $482 billion, it means it is projected that at the end of this budget year the federal government will have spent $482 billion more than they took in.

Each budget year, the budget deficit is added to the national debt, which is more or less a running total of our deficits. Currently, our national debt stands at $9.5 trillion.

Answer 6

It means that the govt. has spent more than it has brought in through tax reveneue and has to borrow that money from another source to pay the excess of expeditures.

Of course, like any loan, the govt. has to pay interest on that debt.

Answer 7

Pretty much yeah.