Fiscal policy is the program of government’s with respect to the amount and composition of (i) expenditure: the purchase of commodities and services, and spending in the form of subsidies, unemployment benefit, interest payments on debt, pension and other payments,
(ii) revenues, which is taxes and non-tax fees (such as license fees etc.)
(iii) public debt: borrowing to cover excess of expenditure over revenues. Borrowing can be taken from the three major sources: domestic banks, the general public, and the central bank (e.g. State Bank of India), and foreign creditors.
Budget Deficit, Budget Surplus and Balanced Budget can be understood as follows:
If i>ii: then the government is said to be running the fiscal or budget deficit and so the government should borrow (or raise debt) to cover deficit; if i
Fiscal deficits and debt are often reported as the ratio of GDP. Though, there is no theoretical benchmark for what constitutes the sustainable fiscal deficit or the public debt ratio, the Maastricht criteria (for the countries in the European Union) is a significant practical guide. It stipulates the fiscal deficit to GDP must be less than 3% while public debt to GDP must be less than 60%.