budget surplus

A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) refers to a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists ("the accounts balance"). More generally, it refers to a budget that has no budget deficit, but could possibly have a budget surplus. A cyclically balanced budget is a budget that is not necessarily balanced year-to-year, but is balanced over the economic cycle, running a surplus in boom years and running a deficit in lean years, with these offsetting over time.