Deficit

A budget deficit occurs when an entity (often a government) spends more money than it takes in. The opposite is a budget surplus.

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Total budget deficit = Structural deficit + Cyclical deficit

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The size of a governmental budget deficit is often an important political issue. Fiscal conservatives denounce deficit spending and advocate balanced budgets. Keynesians argue that under some circumstances, deficit spending is justified. "Starve-the-beast" strategies usually lead to high budget deficits.

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Note that the deficit is distinct from the government debt (often confusingly called the national debt or public debt), which results from an accumulated deficit across a number of years. Often, a certain part of spending is dedicated to paying of debt with certain maturity, which can be refinanced by issuing new government bonds. That is, a fiscal deficit leads to an increase in an entity's debt to others.

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Entity: An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate....

Government: A government is the body that has the power to make and enforce laws within an organization or group. In its broadest sense, "govern" means the power to administrate, whether over an area of land, a set group of people, or a collection of assets. The word government is derived the Greek Κυ...

Money: Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Since the needs arise naturally, societies organically create a money object when none exists. In other cases, a central authority creates a money object; this is more frequently...

Deficit related Images and Photos (experimental)

Wale: Attention Deficit CD [PA]