Research Assignment Analyzing budget data for the United States government
The annual budget of the United States is very complex, but this case requires that you analyze only a small portion of the historical tables that are presented as a part of each year’s budget. The fiscal year of the federal government ends on September 30. Obtain the budget documents needed at www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget by following these steps:
■ Under the “Previous Budgets” heading, click on “Browse”
■ Under the Barack H. Obama heading, click on “Fiscal Year 2010”
■ There are two options that can be used on the page that appears next:
• Under the “Budget Documents” heading, you can select the PDF link beside the “Historical Table” subheading.
• Scroll down to the “Spreadsheets” heading and click on the “Historical Tables” subheading. This option provides the data in an Excel compatible format.
■ Under whichever option you choose above, you will need to review Table 1.1, Table 1.2, and Table 4.2 to complete the requirements below.
Required
a.Table 1.2 shows the budget as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Using the data in the third column, “Surplus or Deficit,” determine how many years since 1960 the budget has shown a surplus and how many times it has shown a deficit. Ignore the “TQ” data between 1976 and 1977. This was a year that the government changed the ending date of its fiscal year.
b. Based on the data in Table 1.2, identify the three years with the highest deficits as a percentage of GDP. What were the deficit percentages for these years? Which year had the largest surplus and by what percentage?
c. Using your findings for Requirement b, regarding the year with the highest deficit as a percentage of GDP, go to Table 1.1 and calculate the deficit for that year as a percentage of receipts.
d. The president of the United States from 1993 through 2000 was Bill Clinton, a Democrat. The president from 2001 through 2009 was George Bush, a Republican. These men had significant input into the federal budget for the fiscal years 1994–2001 and 2002–2009, respectively. Table 4.2 shows what percentage of the total federal budget was directed toward each department within the government. Compare the data on Table 4.2 for 1994-2001, the Clinton years, to the data for 2002–2009, the Bush years. Identify the five departments that appear to have changed the most from the Clinton years to the Bush years. Ignore “Allowances” and “Undistributed offsetting receipts.” Note, if you wish to approach this assignment more accurately, you can compute the average percentage for each department for the eight years each president served, and compare the two averages. The gpoaccess website includes a spreadsheet version of the historical data tables, allowing for a reasonably easy Excel analysis.
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