Government Expenditures
Economists classify government expenditures into three main types. Government purchases of goods and services for current use are classed as government consumption. Government purchases of goods and services intended to create future benefits--- such as infrastructure investment or research spending--- are classed as government investment. Government expenditures that are not purchases of goods and services, and instead just represent transfers of money--- such as social security payments--- are called transfer payments.
Read more about this topic: Public Finance
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“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)