What are excise taxes? what are the two main sources of income for the federal government? how does the government spend the nondefense discretionary part of the federal budget? what are entitlements?

Excise taxis are general revenue tax levied at the moment of manufacture, instead than on sale. Excise, while being referred to as taxis, fall more into the category of duty. An excise tax is considered an indirect tax. Examples of excise taxis are taxes on tobacco or alcohol.

---

The two main sources of income for the federal government are incoming taxes paid by individuals, which constitutes nearly a half of the federal government raises, and then comes payroll taxes paid by workers, and employers, which constitute more than a third of the federal government raises.

The government spends the nondefense discretionary part of the federal budget to fund programs that are non-mandatory, or that are not previously authorized by Acts of Congress. Examples of nondefense discretionary are Education, environmental budget, and other agencies.

Entitlements are programs like Medicare and Social Security, that are “mandatory”, programs that are typically approved by previous Acts of Congress. In this case, the Congress could modify the scale of entitlements, thus how much it is spent on a singular program.