14.1: What are taxes?
14.2: Federal taxes
14.3: Federal spending
15.1: Understand'g Fiscal Policy
15.3: Budget Deficits and the Nat'l Debt
100
This is the income received by a government from taxes and nontax sources.
What is revenue?
100
This is what you file when you pay your taxes.
What is a tax return?
100
This is a spending category about which government planners can make choices.
What is discretionary spending (as opposed to mandatory spending)?
100
This is using taxing and spending to affect the economy.
What is fiscal policy?
100
A situation in which the government spends more than it takes in.
What is a deficit?
200
This is a tax for which the percentage of income paid in taxes remains the same for all income levels. An example is the "flat tax."
What is a proportional tax?
200
This is the amount of your income that is taxed after all deductions and exemptions are subtracted.
What is your taxable income?
200
This is a social welfare program that the government is obligated to pay someone who meets certain eligibility requirements.
What is an entitlement?
200
He is the father of demand side economics, which advocates for counter-cyclical government spending and taxes to offset the private sector.
Who is John Maynard Keynes?
200
True or false: Keynesians do not care whether the government runs a deficit b/c they think in the long run the government, if properly managed, will be able to grow its way out of the debt.
What is true?
300
This is a tax for which the percentage of income paid in taxes increases as income increases.
What is a progressive tax?
300
This is the term for the government taking part of your income out each month to pay for things like Social Security and income taxes.
What is withholding?
300
This is the approximate percentage of the total U.S. budget spent on entitlements.
What is somewhere between 60 - 65 percent.
300
He and his curve have come to be associated with the idea that the government can generate more revenue by lowering taxes.
Who is Arthur Laffer and his "Laffer curve"?
300
This is the loss of funds for private investment due to government borrowing.
What is crowding out?
400
This is the final burden of a tax.
What is the tax incidence?
400
FICA (which stands for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) is money collected for these two programs.
What are Social Security and Medicare?
400
This refers to people with more money getting fewer government benefits.
What is means testing?
400
When the economy is sluggish, Keynesian economists argue that the government should do this.
What is spend more money to offset the lack of spending by the private sector?
400
This is the approximate national debt in dollars.
What is $16.8 trillion?
500
These are the characteristics of a "good" tax system.
What are (1) simplicity, (2) efficiency, (3) certainty, and (4) fairness (or equity)?
500
This is the term given to the government's trying to encourage or discourage a certain behavior through the tax laws.
What is a tax incentive?
500
Spending in this category takes up about half of all discretionary spending.
What is military spending?
500
This is one of the limits of Keynesianism that we discussed in class.
What is (1) It’s hard to change gov’t spending; (2) it's also hard to know where the economy is today much less where it will be a year from now; (3) the lag between gov’t decision to spend and impact on the economy may be too long for spending to have desired effect; and (4) it's hard to coordinate the spending of all levels of gov’ts?
500
These are three ways we've tried to control deficit spending over the past few decades.
What are (1) the Gramm-Rudman Act (which used sequesters), (2) the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act (which tried the "Pay-Go" rule), and (3) constitutional amendments?
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