Question

What are excise taxes? What are the two main sources of income for the federal government? How does the government spend the nondefense discretionary part of the federal budget? What are entitlements?

Answer 1

1. Excise taxes are federal or state taxes placed on commodities such as alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline.
2. The two main sources of revenue for the federal government are personal income taxes and social insurance taxes
3. The federal government spends its money on a wide variety of programs and services. Discretionary spending is the part of the budget that goes through the appropriations process each year.
 4. Government entitlements are welfare programs paid for by taxes or by government borrowing. Examples are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Answer 2

Excise taxis are general revenue tax levied at the moment of manufacture, instead than on sale. Excise, while being referred to as taxis, fall more into the category of duty. An excise tax is considered an indirect tax. Examples of excise taxis are taxes on tobacco or alcohol.

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The two main sources of income for the federal government are incoming taxes paid by individuals, which constitutes nearly a half of the federal government raises, and then comes payroll taxes paid by workers, and employers, which constitute more than a third of the federal government raises.

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The government spends the nondefense discretionary part of the federal budget to fund programs that are non-mandatory, or that are not previously authorized by Acts of Congress. Examples of nondefense discretionary are Education, environmental budget, and other agencies.

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Entitlements are programs like Medicare and Social Security, that are “mandatory”, programs that are typically approved by previous Acts of Congress. In this case, the Congress could modify the scale of entitlements, thus how much it is spent on a singular program.