How would YOU fix the Budget Deficit? Come Play Budget God.

[JohnR]

Ran across this the other day - though from last year it is a nice little tool that lets you play budget god. Took me a bout 15 minutes to balance the budget. Clearly, it doesn't give some of the granular control I would have liked - I really would have liked deeper ability to cut even though that would have taken a whole extra 30 minutes.

Go Play and lets compare how we do it: Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com


Once you have done yours, post a link to yours here.

Once you have posted yours, see mine: Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& - Please make an HONEST attempt at fixing the budget that could work, don't throw the game to try to make a point.

[OLD GOAT]

Simple Wait for congress to leave the building and then chain the doors shut.

The rest requires a little restraint, kinda like when your allowance was not enough and you had to wait another week before you could buy that special thingy.
This is my country,my flag, But i,m ashamed of those in government in Washington That stuff there pockets I think we could start by not giving money to countries that hate us ,burn our flag and want our young people to die while they badmouth us.

[RIROCKHOUND]

couldn't figure out how to save...
60/40 split between cuts and taxes (and I'm a liberal, go figure)

Keys on my plan.
reduce foreign aide
reduce troops in Europe
SS/Medicare to 68
Pre-Clinton levels
bush tax cuts

[striperman36]

stop being the world's police man.

Cut foreign aid

[RIROCKHOUND]

So.. did anyone do it with spending cuts alone????

[JohnnyD]

I think Warren Buffet had the best idea... "I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection"

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

So.. did anyone do it with spending cuts alone????

I'm sure Obama will be able to do it.

Has anybody heard his plan yet.

JD, I still think your a closet conservative.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

So.. did anyone do it with spending cuts alone????

No, but it could be. As opposed to adding taxes, which isn't enough. When I added the maximum taxes possible I could only get to 87% without cuts. Though i could eliminate the spending deficit purely through cuts.

Clearly, the most reasonable approach is a balance of cuts and adding some revenue. I'm personally for getting 2/3rds through cuts and 1/3rd through revenue but the cuts have to be first - we can't afford it any other way.

The middle class is getting squeezed, and if this problem is to be solved with raised revenue it will be on the backs of the middle class. We can't afford that. i can't afford that.

[detbuch]

It's a nice monopoly type board game limiting the players to a smaller set of options than are actually/theoretically available. The biggest problem is that the Federal Government operates politically. All money, no matter how much or how little that is collected will not only be spent, but spending will exceed the intake because government has the power to do it. Until that power is removed, we can play the game and aplaud how we balance the budget with the options the game provides, but the pols will play a different game. Devolving power from big government back to local government, I believe, would solve, at least, the National Government's spending problems. A balanced budget ammendment might help, might be a start, but that's been tried, and tricks get around such constraints. The Constitution, if followed as written and intended, would certainly limit the National Government to responsibilities that would greatly reduce its need for money.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

It's a nice monopoly type board game limiting the players to a smaller set of options than are actually/theoretically available. The biggest problem is that the Federal Government operates politically. All money, no matter how much or how little that is collected will not only be spent, but spending will exceed the intake because government has the power to do it. Until that power is removed, we can play the game and aplaud how we balance the budget with the options the game provides, but the pols will play a different game. Devolving power from big government back to local government, I believe, would solve, at least, the National Government's spending problems. A balanced budget ammendment might help, might be a start, but that's been tried, and tricks get around such constraints. The Constitution, if followed as written and intended, would certainly limit the National Government to responsibilities that would greatly reduce its need for money.

Shrinking the Federal government might just make State and local governments larger.

Perhaps they could be more efficient...for instance it wouldn't be as easy to toss billions around with a smaller budget and fragmenting K Street would make it harder for wealthy interest groups to assert influence.

On the flip slide you would lose economies of scale. Also the introduction of more variability (state to state) could increase the costs of business to service local needs. Environmental regulations that impact everyone could set states against one another, or decisions made locally might not be in the interest of the country. A good example here might be ANWR. If left to the Alaskan people (who get a piece of the oil action) they might be biased in supporting exploration at the expense of damage to the environment that all Americans own.

Perhaps we simply need to pay our politicians better, then we could attract the real talent

-spence

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Shrinking the Federal government might just make State and local governments larger.

Perhaps they could be more efficient...for instance it wouldn't be as easy to toss billions around with a smaller budget and fragmenting K Street would make it harder for wealthy interest groups to assert influence.

On the flip slide you would lose economies of scale. Also the introduction of more variability (state to state) could increase the costs of business to service local needs. Environmental regulations that impact everyone could set states against one another, or decisions made locally might not be in the interest of the country. A good example here might be ANWR. If left to the Alaskan people (who get a piece of the oil action) they might be biased in supporting exploration at the expense of damage to the environment that all Americans own.

Perhaps we simply need to pay our politicians better, then we could attract the real talent

-spence

I'm not sure what you mean by economies of scale. If you mean economies of large size, and by that you mean the U.S. economy--that would still exist. The Federal Gvt. subset would be smaller, but that is the objective so would be a good thing. The U.S. aggregate economy would be more diverse since it would be less centrally regulated. And the States could be freer to be the much lauded laboratories of experimentation which are now suppressed by central power. Various programs to deal with common needs seen on a more first hand view would be implemented with more likely voter approval than with the current force of 51% of far off voters determining what the majority of your State will pay for.

Though State to State variability might create some minor expenses for bigger business, it might, even more, save them money as States compete for their business, or try to make it economically advantageous to sell or produce locally. But that is secondary to the goal of limiting the central government power to spend. It is also secondary to the goal of applying Constitutional principles to governance. It is secondary to assuring the individual citizen the liberty that the Constitution provides. We are first, or should be, a nation of citizens, not an economy. The economy should be the result of our action, we should not be slaves to some centrally planned and regulated theory. The former will evolve and flourish, the latter will ultimately stagnate and fail due to lack of diversity necessary for evolution.

And . . . OH! . . . the Environment. To begin with, one of the main reasons for writing the Constitution was to create economic cooperation among the States, instead of the economic wars that were occuring between the confederated States. So there is, actually, a Federal power granted in the Constitution to ameliorate economic disputes between States. If the environmental regulations that you speak of are creatures of the central gvt., they are probably unconstitutional and should be void. If your speaking of environmental regulations drafted by States that conflict with one another, the Federal Gvt. would Constitutionally be an arbiter. So, no need to worry there.

As for the environment of Alaska belonging to all of us, that is saying that there is no State sovereignty. And if your referring to territory that belongs to the Federal Gvt., Alaskans can't do what they will to such territory without Federal consent.