Fiscal Policy
Fiscal ෴policy refers to taxing and spending polic🌺ies of governments, often with a specific focus on budgeting and the effect of taxing and spending on the broader economy. Fiscal policy is one of, if not the, largest way in which governments affect economies.
Fiscal Policy Essentials
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Frequently Asked Questions
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There is nothing inherent preventing sta🌜te and local governments from running deficits in the same way that national governments do. However, almost all U.S. State constitutions have balanced budget amendments, which legally prevent those specific states from ཧdoing so.
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Contractionary fiscal policy can decrease the crowding-out effect by increasing the amount of credit available to other borrowers because less lending is going to the government to 🅘finance its debt.
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No, States cannot declare bankꦓruptcy as it is not permitted by U.S. bankruptcy law. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1977 that Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. forbids them from doing so.
Learn More: Can U.S. States Declare Bankruptcy? -
Deficits are a critical tool in꧃ fiscal policy, allowing extra spending over and above what the government collects in taxes. This allows governments to finance important initiatives such as infrastructure improvement, economic stimulus during economic downturns, and national defense in wartime.
Key Terms
- Fiscal Policy
Fiscal policy refers to how governments collect an🎶d spend money. Fiscal policy is cri꧃tical to how the government affects the economy at large.
- Subsidy
A subsidy is money given to an individual or organization by the government. Government subsidies are often given to businesses to try to bolster sectors of the economy consid𒐪ered especially important.
- Financial System
A financial system is a network of organizations that enable financial tran🉐sactions. Financial systems are made up of, among other institutions, banks, insurance companies, and stock brokerages. While there is a global financial system, there 🎉are also many national and regional financial systems that interact with and overlap with each other and the world financial system.
- Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the colloquial name for the United States Tariff Act of 1930, raised U.S. tariffs on many goods by 20%. This tariff, passed after the onset of the Great Depression, provoked retaliatory tariffs from many other countries. This trade war likely resulted in economic dama🍒ge, but the amount is ✅disputed.
- Implementation Lag
Implementation lag refers to the length of time between when an economic event, like a recession, begins, and when governmꦺent interventions to deal with i🌠t are put in place. As such, governments need to try and take this lag into account or their interventions may be tailored to situations that are now passed.
- Works Progress Administration (WPA)
The works progress administration was a fiscal stimulus program created in 1935 as part of the New Deal to combat🃏 the Great Depression. It sought to lower the unemployment rate by directly hiring people to do various kinds of work, such as building infrastructure projects.
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Explore Fiscal Policy
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