Taxing Times
This tax aims to discourage harmful activities, like smoking or pollution, by imposing higher costs on these behaviors. In fact, one name for it sounds exactly like syntax.
What is Excise Tax or Sin Tax or Vice Tax?
Straight outta class notes, "If decision-making is the central administrative act, this action is the fundamental administrative decision."
What is Budgeting?
This type of policy is primarily concerned with government spending and taxes
What is Fiscal Policy?
This electric-sounding book has been the supplementary text for this course, providing ideas on how the government can efficiently and effectively expand programs.
What is Voltage?
In public finance, this word encapsulates the idea that budgets rarely experience massive changes.
What is Incrementalism?
In Mad Max: Fury Road, the desert wasteland may not have many roads, but in the real world, this tax helps fund the ones we drive on every day.
What is Gas Tax or Pump Tax?
If the budget cycle for Bourbon County, KS, begins on January 1 and concludes on December 31 of each year, then this year's budget is likely the one they are currently finalizing.
What is FY26?
We know this person because they are the author of the required text for this class.
What is Charles Menifield?
This type of government spending is required by law, including Social Security and interest payments on the national debt.
What is Mandatory Spending?
This type of Federal government spending goes through layers of Congressional and presidential debate and negotiation to gain approval.
What is Discretionary Spending?
When you evade taxes, and Uncle Sam gets ya, a significant fine or jail term could follow. However, if you can execute this other action effectively, Al Capone might have called you up to be his tax accountant.
What is Tax Avoidance?
The City of Auburn plans to buy some Ford trucks for a massive project lined up by the government. Those vehicle payments would fall under this category of expenditures.
What are Capital Expenditures or Long-term Expenditures?
Government expenditures are typically operational or capital. However, this category includes special deductions and exemptions, which refer to revenue lost rather than money spent.
What are Tax Expenditures?
In the 19th century, this U.S. President’s administration introduced the first federal income tax to fund the Civil War.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
These two agencies are crucial in managing and analyzing the Federal budget for Congressional decision-making.
What are the CBO and OMB?
This principle, often reflected in property and gas taxes, suggests that users of government services should pay taxes proportional to the benefit they receive from the government.
What is The Benefit Principle of Taxation?
This type of fund in the budget includes subcategories like special revenue and debt service funds.
What are Governmental Funds?
A truly fiscally fit government may rely extensively on this type of analysis to determine whether an expensive, large-scale project is worth pursuing.
What is Cost-Benefit Analysis?
(Hopefully) not related to Agent 007, state and local governments can issue this financial instrument when they need to raise money for capital projects.
What are Municipal Bonds or Bonds?
Presidents, governors, mayors, and other government executives have some power in public finance, but they still have to persuade this other group before a lot of budget requests get approved.
What is Legislature, Legislative, or Congress?
This Constitutional Amendment gives the U.S. Government the authority to levy income taxes.
What is the 16th Amendment?
With an abbreviation that sounds like a synonym for a crevice, this acronym represents accounting rules that U.S. organizations use to prepare, present, and report financials.
What is GAAP?
This one is tough. In Voltage, we learned about this paradox that explains the concept of diminishing marginal utility while providing a new definition of efficiency relevant to governments.
What is the Diamond-Water Paradox?
Named after an economist whose last name rhymes with "gaffer," this curve shows the relationship between tax rates and government revenue, suggesting that there is an optimal tax rate.
What is the Laffer Curve?
This word broadly describes deductions and credits that governments use to attract businesses. In one of our readings, Alabama was said to have used it to convince Mercedes-Benz to build its first U.S. auto plant.
What is an Incentive?