When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.
One suggestion my wife and I have used in our personal finance courses we teach at college is simply writing down all expenditures and seeing where the money goes. That alone will cause heads of households to think twice about x, y or z expenditure, and to consider carefully whether they really need something or not.
All workers, whether they are employed in the private or public sector, should avoid living 'paycheck to paycheck.' Studies show that every household wastes 10% or more of its salary or income on unnecessary expenditures or by not taking the time to shop for better prices. It's all a matter of proper budgeting.
The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case.
The greatly increased consumption of alcoholic beverages is very largely a direct result of the increased purchasing power created by wartime expenditures.
War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.
I believe a nation does not maximize its health care until it starts to ask the hard question: How can we prioritize our expenditures to buy the most health care for the most people? We should not apologize for rationing; we should promote it and advance it.
Much fiscal policy is implemented, not through spending increases, but through tax credits and other so-called tax expenditures. The markets should respond to them as they do spending cuts, with little contraction in economic activity.
Expenditures rise to meet income.
I have very, very low expenditures, but still I manage to spend it all. I guess Hot Pockets are more expensive than I thought.