Final answer:
A budget surplus happens when a government's revenue exceeds its expenditures in a fiscal year, which is true. The U.S had surpluses in the late 1990s but faced large deficits in 2009 and 2020. Therefore, the given statement is True.
Step-by-step explanation:
A budget surplus occurs when a government receives more revenue than it spends in any given fiscal year. The statement is True. For instance, the U.S. government ran budget surpluses from 1998-2001. However, there have been years of significant budget deficits as well.
In 2009, during the financial crisis, the federal government experienced a huge budget deficit, spending approximately $1.4 trillion more than it collected in taxes. More recently, in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the government spent about $3.1 trillion more than its revenue, resulting in the largest budget deficit as a percentage of GDP since World War II.