General Cost of Government - What is it actually?

What is this expense? What makes up the cost?

In each of my states the general cost of government is $46B+ a month or $552B+ per state per year -( the cost is not decreasing; it is actually increasing each game month).

That means my -general- costs of keeping my country (& associated states) running is over $8 Trillion (yes - $8Trillion with a T per year - WTF?!?!)

Keep in mind this is just for the one line on the PL statement -general cost of government- this is not factoring any other costs my country incurs - defense, health, edu, etc.

How is there no way to control this cost?

Andy, can I have an explanation as to what is going on here please?

For the most part, it's what you see in the tooltip, but I believe a complicating factor is how many countries you have. The more countries. The more tax.

It provides an incentive to run a smaller, better run, empire over a larger one.

Also, this is a good question to ask on the "help" forum.

Edit: Yep, just found you. 30 countries? That'll do it. Also, you are more likely to see rebellions with more countries. I believe the chance for rebellions disappears completely if under 11 countries.

That's correct, 11 is the trigger point. Afterwards, there is a sliding scale adjustment based on number of countries. Don't remember the formula.
For a long time i dabbled in mass empire building. The struggle is real

$46B p/m for 30 countries seems too cheap. I have an empire of 16 countries and pay $58B p/m.

As Aries said, it is explained.

It is in fact general government cost. It depends on the size of the population and it depends on the current cost on the market of various products used by the government institutions.

The cost is increasing faster when the population is increasing to very high numbers.