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Balanced Budget (Economics)
A term used when the sum of money a government collects is equal to the amount it collectively spends on goods, services, and debt interest. Within his popular theories, the 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes regarded a balanced budget in the public sector as being achieved when a government possesses enough fiscal discipline to be able to maintain equilibrium between revenues and expenses over various business cycles. The maintenance of such a delicate balance results in a deficit during low economic periods counterbalanced by the production of surplus in periods of high economic activity.
While it is common for most U.S. states to require the local government to pass a balanced budget, the U.S. Constitution does not require the Congress to do so. While the ...