You're looking at everything as one budget that you control. Consider instead that you're part of a co-op and your responsibility is to buy the groceries alway

You're looking at everything as one budget that you control. Consider instead that you're part of a co-op and your responsibility is to buy the groceries always. Someone else does the home repairs. Someone else keeps all the cars fueled. Someone else pays the utility bill. There are fifty different people with responsibilities. Sometimes there will also be "You must spend $100 on supplies for an event on July 17th." On January 1, you get all the money that you will get for the year to buy groceries. How much do you ask the co-op board for? Government doesn't see it as one big account, but rather "this is how much we get, this is how much we allocate to the different accounts." Home budgets work differently. There's one pool of money and if you have an expense you can skimp on another part of the budget. Had to get a plumber? Hold back on going to the movies for a few weeks. You can't do "we had a natural disaster so we're short on money and not going to pay the prison guards for a few weeks."