It means they can steal less next year. It is better than stealing more next year, and the year after, and the year after, plus interest, etc.

Replace “government” with “corporation” and everyone would be cool with it. It’s a big planet with lots of resources. We just need to stop stealing from each other.

The good news is we’ll never find out what a government is like that operates in a surplus.

Depends on source of surplus. I think people who say it’s good don’t have overtaxation in mind.

There’s some state governments that run a surplus and just send out refunds to raxpayers.

Good point. But deficit is still worse. With a surplus at least the stealing was transparent.

Don’t worry, the surplus will be stolen too.

I think let the surplus ride until end of fiscal year, or quarter for that matter. Then distribute surplus back to its population. A government should never profit off its people

Whoever says that surplus is a fiscal responsibility, either has no idea about macroeconomics or is a fraud or both. On the other hand controlling the deficit is not a light topic and also you have to have control of your currency (do you hear eurozone citizens?). If you know what you are doing, y...

Being able to verify where tax money goes and how it’s being spent would completely change the picture. Government surplus: lower tax rates or rollout tax returns… Government deficit: decrease spending, reset budgets, reelections etc.