expenditure

He said despite a recruitment freeze and reducing operational expenditure, the university was still looking at a deficit of between £25m and £30m next year.

DfI figures show there have been almost 120,000 road defects and potholes recorded in Northern Ireland since January this year, and structural maintenance expenditure has been increasing year on year.

Other large mandatory lines of government expenditure include Medicare - a government-funded health insurance program primarily serving Americans aged over 65.

Yet if all of the $2 trillion in US government expenditure savings now being targeted by Musk were to come from discretionary spending, analysts calculate that entire agencies - from transport, to agriculture, to Homeland Security - would have to be entirely closed down.

The International Monetary Fund has projected that total US “general government expenditure”, which includes spending by individual states, will be around 37.5% of its GDP in 2024.