Create Your Own Federal Budget!

[Beet]

Budget Hero: Click skip intro, click OK, drag at least 1 badge, and then click start in green at the lower right.

I played the following cards:
Spending Cuts
Bring Troops Home Soon -$210 Billion
Cut Military Spending by 10 percent -$541 Billion
Cut Foreign Aid -$218 Billion
Cut Discretionary Spending -$265 Billion
Simplify and Raise Medicare Fees -$31 Billion
Tax High Premium Insurance Plans -$254 Billion
Freeze Medicare payments -$284 Billion
Cut Rates for private health plans in Medicare -$177 Billion
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Total Cuts: $1.98 Trillion

Spending Increases
More Funding for Arts in Schools +0.53 Billion
Increase NSF Grants by 50 Percent +$35 Billion
Reform and Reduce Farm Subsidies -$10 Billion
Give Prize for Cheaper Car +$0.30 Billion
More Money for Child Care +$5 Billion
More for Workesr Affected by Trade +$4 Billion
Expand Unemployment Benefits +$22 Billion
Provide Relief to States +$50 Billion
Fund High Speed Rail +$10 Billion
Cover More Low Income People +$42 Billion
Computerize Health Information +$70 Billion
Public Option +$0 Billion
Require and Subsidize Health Insurance +$568 Billion
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Total Increases: $817 Billion

Tax Cuts
Link AMT to Inflation: -$1.07 Trillion
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Total Cuts: $1.07 Trillion

Tax Hikes
Limit Breaks for Charitable Giving: +$255 Billion
No Breaks for Extractive Industries: +$26 Billion
End Breaks for Big Oil: $14 Billion
Tax Private equity, Hedge Fund Managers: +$26 Billion
Tilt Payroll Tax Burden to the Rich: +$77 Billion
No state, local tax deduction: $701 Billion
Repeal Bush Tax Cuts: +$2.954 Trillion
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$4.053 Trillion

You reduced the debt from 70.3% of GDP in 2009 to 44.0% in 2019. You delayed the budget bust, pushing it from 2031 to 2070+.  You shrank the size of government from 23.4% of GDP in 2009 to 21.4% of GDP in 2019.

I just notice something f'ed up about this game, though. In calculating the debt impact they assume zero growth in GDP! Absurd. Revenue is half the story, yet it is totally missing here.

Further, this excludes the fact that in the short run, I would massively increase deficit spending to fund jobs programs; it also excludes that some of this would be funded by QE. These are critical points. Games like this are fun, but unrealistic.