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.

Not sure about the govt/corp part. I can choose to not buy stuff from a corporation and thus to not pad their surplus. I cannot choose to not pay the government in taxes and thus to not pad their surplus.(At least not without fear of reprisal, fine, jail, etc.) Seems different to me, force versus choice.

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.

Don’t listen to their words or policies. That’s just to keep their jobs. Watch how they act. In reality, technology dampens scarcity’s effects if only they’d stop getting in its way.

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, you can for example, control deficit with inflation (even if that sounds odd to some people). For example if you borrow today one billion € and you have to pay it off 20 years later, the value of the one billion would not be the same after 20 years because of inflation and you could pay it easier. I simplified it, but do you get it?

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.