G15

a) A Balanced Budget is a budget with revenues equal to expenditures, where neither a budget deficit or budget surplus exist.

b) Federal payments to groups or individuals under government programs that disperse money to people who meet certain criteria.

c) One example of a federal entitlement is Medicare. Federal entitlement programs act as barriers to a balanced budget because they are not limited, and every person who meets the criteria for the programs will be eligible to the entitlements of that program. The only way to decrease the amount of expenditures payed for these programs is to lower the number of people eligible, which is not popular among the public, making it unpopular amongst politicians. Therefore entitlement programs force the government to fund certain projects and pay certain amounts of money, while making no money under the program.

d) A consequence of a large budget deficit is that they can put the country in risk by putting themselves in too much debt.

e) For 2012, our projected revenue was $2.47 trillion, our expenditures were $3.79 trillion our budget deficit was $1.1 Trillion.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/usfederalbudget/p/US-Government-Federal-Budget-FY2012-Summary.htm

f) The total national debt is 16.533 Trillion, and pending.
http://www.usdebtclock.org