The public budget

The State and other Public Administrations must determine each year the maximum amount they will spend the following year and what they will spend it on, and they must also forecast the revenue needed to finance it. In other words, they calculate the amount of financial resources needed to pay public expenses, that is, to finance the goods and services that citizens need. These “accounts” on the income and expenditure of the community constitute the public budget ; calculations that we all easily make with our personal economy, and that for the state economy are collected every year in what can be considered the most important law of all: the General State Budget Law .

Article 134 of the Spanish Constitution states that “The Government is responsible for preparing the General State Budget and the Cortes Generales are responsible for examining and approving it. The General State Budget is annual and includes all expenses and income of the state public sector. The Government must submit them to the Congress of Deputies at least three months before the end of the previous year's General State Budget. When they are not approved to come into force the following year, those from the previous year are automatically extended.

Like the central government, the Autonomous Communities and Municipalities also approve their own budgets each year.