The issue of public culture expense includes many sub-issues，such as demarcation，target，scope，principle，scale，structure，management and employment. It is not only an important theoretical problem of public culture management，public culture policy，and public culture service，but also an urgent realistic problem of public management and service.However，due to the lag behind of public culture management and policy research，precise studies on public culture expense have not been carried out systematically and effectively. This article combines principles of public economics with public culture service theories，and studies the demarcation，target，scope，and principle of public culture expense. this article points out that，as the subject to liability of public culture management and service and to fulfill its basic function，government should properly choose the scope of public culture service，and keep providing financial fund based on certain principles，and finally achieve the target of providing public culture service and promoting public culture development. Besides，public culture expense should also complies to several basic principles to ensure its public expenditure nature.