Economics: Principles and Practices © 2008

Chapter 10: Government Spending

Web Activity Lesson Plans


"Understanding the Federal Budget"

Introduction
Students have already learned that the federal budget is an annual plan outlining the proposed revenues and expenditures for the coming year. A good source for further information about the budget is the Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget released by the Government Printing Office. This document is designed to provide an outline of how the government raises revenues and spends money; how the budget is enacted by the president and Congress; reasons for the budget deficit and debt; and accomplishments the president hopes to achieve with the current budget.

Lesson Description
Students will use information from the Federal Budget Web site to find out more about the budget of the United States government.

Previous Knowledge Expected
Students should be familiar with the following terms:
federal budget: annual plan outlining proposed expenditures and anticipated revenues
fiscal year: 12-month financial planning period that may coincide with the calendar year; October 1 to September 30 for the federal government

Applied Content Standards (from the National Council on Economic Education)
Standard 2: Effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Most choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something; few choices are all-or-nothing decisions.
Standard 20: Federal government budgetary policy and the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy influence the overall levels of employment, output, and prices.

Instructional Objectives

  1. Students will be able to describe the federal budget.

  2. Students will list sources of revenue for the federal government.

  3. Students will list federal budget categories of spending.

Student Web Activity Answers

      1-4: Teacher may prepare an answer sheet from information provided on the Web site.

Extending the Lesson
Encourage students to read other sections of the Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget. The entire Citizen's Guide document is available at the following address: http://www.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2000/maindown.html
The UC-Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research has developed a Web site simulation of the national budget. Have students read the rules and play the simulation. Both long and short versions are available at the site: http://www.budgetsim.org/nbs/

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