State and Local Estimates for 1820-1889

On April 17, 2016 we added estimates of state and local spending for 1820-1889. These data were obtained from Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Volume 2: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States 1760-1914. On Page 363 Mann presents a table of spending for 1820 thru 1890, taken from an estimate of state and local revenue, for each decade year.

Mann's data only includes a number for combined state and local spending (or revenue), but we have estimated the state and local breakdown based on the spending and revenue numbers for 1890 obtained from the Census Bureau. Expenditures and revenues are in millions of nominal dollars. We assume that the ratio of state to local spending, and state to local revenue, remains the same from 1820 to 1890.

	-- From Mann, p363 --
Year	Central Expenditure	Total Expenditure	State and Local Expenditure	State Spend Estimate	Local Spend Estimate	State Rev. Estimate	Local Rev. Estimate
1890	384.3	944.3	560	72	488	106	454
1880	301	621.1	320.1	41.2	278.9	60.6	259.5
1870	328.5	611.7	283.2	36.4	246.8	53.6	229.6
1860	71.7	171.7	100	12.9	87.1	18.9	81.1
1850	44.8	89.2	44.4	5.7	38.7	8.4	36
1840	28.9	67.6	38.7	5	33.7	7.3	31.4
1830	17	33.1	16.1	2.1	14	3	13.1
1820	19.3	27.7	8.4	1.1	7.3	1.6	6.8

These numbers should be regarded as tentative and merely indicative of the size of state and local finances in the mid 19th century. Nobody can imagine the exact spending and revenue, since governments in the mid-19th century acted much more independently than they do today, and made up their rules, about what to count as spending and what to count as revenue, as they went along.

Federal Budget for FY17 Released

On February 9, 2016, we updated usgovernmentspending.com with the numbers from the historical tables in the Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2017. Actual revenue for FY 2015 and estimated revenue through FY 2021 come from Historical Tables 2.1, 2.4, and 2.5. Actual spending for FY 2015 and estimated spending at the subfunction level through FY 2021 comes from Table 3.2. Budget Authority estimates come from Table 5.1, federal debt estimates come from Table 7.1 and GDP estimates come from Table 10.1. Intergovernmental transfers come from Table 12.3.

Here is how headline budget estimates for the upcoming FY 2017 fiscal year have changed since the release of the FY 2016 budget a year ago in 2015.

FY 2017 Federal Budget Changes Since 2015

$ billion	Estimate in FY16 Budget	Estimate in FY17 Budget	Change
Federal Outlays	$4,217.8	$4,147.2	-$70.6
Federal Receipts	$3,755.0	$3,643.7	-$111.3
Federal Deficit	$462.8	$503.5	+$40.7

You can see line item changes from budget to budget here. You can compare budget estimates with actuals here.

Account level spending estimates through FY 2021 come from the Outlays table in the Public Budget Database and were updated on usgovernmentspending.com on February 9, 2016.

Account level budget authority estimates through FY 2021 come from the Budget Authority table in the Public Budget Database and were updated on usgovernmentspending.com on February 9, 2016.

State and Local Finances Update for FY 2013

On February 1, 2016 usgovernmentspending.com learned that the US Census Bureau may not continue distributing a "flat file" of state and local finances, but only publish a summary of state and local finances.

So we have adapted our state and local finance process to extract the necessary data from the summary files published at the Bureau's State and Local Finance page. Briefly, this means that many detail functions, such as elementary education, are compressed to a single data item instead of two or three.

On February 6, 2016 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2013 using the newly Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances summaries for FY 2013 released in Fall 2015.  This includes state and local spending for the United States as a whole and individual states and the District of Columbia.

State and local spending and revenue for FY2013 are now actual historical spending as reported by the Census Bureau.  Previously state spending and revenue for FY2013 was actual and local spending and revenue was estimated.  The following table shows the difference between estimated and actual local spending and revenue for FY2013:

FY 2013	Estimated $ billion	Actual $ billion
Local Spending	$1,601	$1,684
Local Revenue	$1,094	$1,169

We will update the "guesstimated" state and local finances for FY2014-20 after the FY2017 federal budget update.