Hello everyone! I'm Resentine, and, if you've clicked this, you know exactly why you're here!

Government Spending hasn't really been addressed by anyone, even though Military Spending and International Aid plays such a large role in TSP's Roleplay community. The reason I'm doing this now is mainly because I had to do it after a small spout with the Logic Police over my military's budget, so, I figured now would be a good time to address this. I'm going to show you how I did it so that way, if you want to, or maybe if a survey comes up( ) you have something to work with.

So, let's get started! USD will be used to simplify things, feel free to use your own currency!

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Alright, so, let's get started with the basics. There are three main things you need to know before you start calculating your Budget: GDP, Population, GDP per capita, or per person. technically, you don't need that last one, but, it helps put some perspective on your spending if you do, at least, in my opinion. We'll use Resentine as an example.

Quote:Population: 42,265,201

GDP: $838,152,550,632 USD

GDP per Capita: $19,830.80 USD

Alright, with that down, now to determine what your government actually collects in taxes(Like Income taxes, Corporate income taxes, Social Securities Taxes, etc) and other forms of governmental income(Deposits in the Federal Reserves, Customs duties, etc) to fund itself. This is usually shown as a percentage of your GDP, with more liberal governments collecting a higher amount(closer to 22-30% of the GDP, with some exceptions like communist governments) and conservative governments will collect less(Closer to 14-22%, with exceptions like Liberatarian governments). Resentine collects 24% of it's GDP in taxes, because it is a liberal nation, which adds up to:

Quote:Government Budget: $201,156,612,151.68 USD[24% of GDP]

With that down, we can now calculate what your government actually spends. Governments do not always spend all of what they collects, nor do they always spend within the confines of it's income. Usually overspending is done by getting loans from other governments, and just like loans, are paid back over a period of time. In this example(As Resentine's current budget, unless I missed something. Please let me know if you think I did!), Resentine spends 98% of it's budget, and therefor has a surplus of income, which can be used to pay off any debts it might have, save for a future endeavor, or to make a purchase(like a new warship or something like that).

Here's the example list for Resentine and explanations for each:

Quote:Military: $56,323,851,402.47(28%) USD($187,535.51 per Personnel[Personnel : 300,337])

This is Military spending. This covers payments for personnel, paying for logistical supplies, buying new equipment, and military research projects. For Comparison, Japan spends about $41 billion on it's military.

Quote:Social Spending: $60,346,983,645.50 USD(30%)[$1,427.82 per capita]

This is the Social spending. This covers things like Government "single-payer" healthcare(private companies are allowed to cover Resentinians), food stamps, unemployment, and other social projects. Resentine is a very liberal country, so, it has high social spending. For Comparison, The United States spends about $5,000 for every family of Four, while Resentine would be spending
around $5,700.

Quote:Government Administration: $10,057,830,607.58(5%)

These are the costs of running your government. This generally covers paying politicians, secretaries, aides, runners, etc, etc, etc. This also includes the cost of relaying and acquiring information, which is usually the largest part. Information comes in two main forms, digitized, and paper. An entirely digitized government will usually have a lower administration cost, closer to 2% of the budget because they are smaller. Governments that are not at all digitized will have higher costs, closer to 8%, because they are much larger. Resentine sits right about in the middle at 5%, with some of Resentine's government being digitized, while other parts not being digitized. I don't really have anything to compare this to, so... no comparisons for this one.

Quote:Public Infrastructure & Transportation: $18,104,095,093.65(9%)

This is Resentine's public infrastructure and transportation spending. Public Transportation costs usually include federal government grants, federal aid for highways, security for public transportation(aviation, trains, boats for Resentine), disaster assistance, and retired pay. This funding is usually divided up between water, air, and ground transportation. Public infrastructure is also included under this because the Resentinian Government has it's funding distributed under the Federal Infrastructure & Transportation board.

Quote:Law and Order: $12,069,396,729.10(6%)

This is what Resentine spends on Law Enforcement. The majority of this goes towards the Federal Investigation Service, Resentine's version of a National Police Agency, while the rest goes towards grants for local/state police agencies, and other policing duties. By comparison, the UK(without a National Police force) spends about $6,664,526,670 on it's police forces(Distributed to local police via the Home Office).

Quote:Government Subsidies: $6,034,698,364.55(3%)

This is what Resentine gives in Government Subsidies. Government subsidies are usually used to help newer industries that a government is interested in growing, or used to help companies preforming projects that would help the government. Since Resentine is a liberal country and has a relatively bad history with rouge private corporations, it doesn't give out much in the way of government subsidies, and is very restrictive as to who they give them to. More conservative or more industry favoring governments would be more likely to give out more subsidies and have less restrictions.

Quote:International Aid: $8,046,264,486.07(6%)

This is what Resentine spends on international aid. Resentine offers this up to countries in need or as donations to private organizations. Resentine doesn't give as much as some other countries because it does have a more domestically focused government. Other nations that have a significantly compassionate government or a more interventionist government may give out more, while more conservative governments would likely not give out much international aid.

Quote:Environment: $8,046,264,486.07(4%)

This is what Resentine spends on the Environment. This includes Funding for nature preserves and national parks, The National Wildlife Service, government funded environmental research, and some government subsidies for companies preforming actions to assist in the environment. Nations that heavily believe in climate change/global warming may give more, while countries that don't believe in global warming may give less or even none.

Quote:Education: $12,069,396,729.10(6%)

This is what Resentine spends on education. Education funding is mainly used as grants and federal funding to local school districts for primary and secondary education and other educational services. Depending on how your nation is run, your nation could have a function of complete control over education(like more Communist Governments) and provide significantly more funding, or your nation could be more conservative, and not truly have an interest in contributing to education. A comparison for Resentine here would be South Korea, which spends 5% of it's of it's budget on education.

Quote:Crisis/Emergency Funding: $6,034,698,364.55(3%)

Crisis Funding is a thing that may exist in the real world, but, I made it specifically for Resentine, and didn't look into it's existence in real world governments. On that note, Crisis funding exists in case a massive situation comes up that requires funding that is not otherwise available in the rest of the budget. This includes natural disasters, man made disasters, wars, military crises, and other "surprise" incidents that Resentine would not be otherwise prepared for(which tend to be quite frequent in The South Pacific). The difference between this and normal budgetary surplus is that this money has to be spent by the end of the budgetary year, and cannot be used to pay national debts. Most of this normally gets spent on emergency supplies like preservable food and water, refugee facilities, and occasionally diverted to military projects deemed essential by the Parliament Arms and Military Committee.

Quote:Commerce and Trade/b]: $4,023,132,243.03(2%)

This is what Resentine spends on Commerce and Trade. Overseen by the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Parliament Commerce and Trade Commission. While many countries spend this to help advertise or promote their companies to other nations and their citizens abroad, however, Resentine mainly uses this funding to enforce regulations on products that do not meet Resentine's health regulations, or come from countries where trade is restricted.

Quote:[b]Budgetary Surplus: $0.00

Alright, after some review, I removed Resentine's budgetary surplus and replaced it with the Commerce and Trade. I'm also going to go into more detail about the benefits and issues with Budgetary surpluses too, so, bear with me.

One of the big benefits Of having a budgetary surplus is obviously knowing that your government is being run efficiently, and you can pay back loans and other national debts. You can also use it to save up for future projects, or invest in current ones. However, there are a few downsides to this as well. Notably, budgetary surpluses have the possibility of creating deflation, or where currency becomes more expensive so goods become cheaper. While this may seem like a good thing at first, deflation also increases the real value of debt, making it more difficult to pay off national debts. Keeping your country's economy on track requires a balance of inflation and deflation, and in small increments, to make sure that your currency and your products do not become worthless. Though your government may take a part of the GDP through taxes and other incomes to fund itself, to not let that cloud the idea that it is a two way street. Just like how the economy plays a big roll in Government, government also take a big roll in the economy.

Quote:Net Budget: + $0.00

Your Net Budget is how much your country is in surplus/in debt as an overall based on how much your government has spent.

On that note: Did I miss anything? What are your budgets like? please post below and let me know how much this helped!