Hey all.
With taxes, government spending and the national debt being constant sources of debate, I decided to create a thread to let Forumites put their money where their mouth is. Attached below are links to several on-line sims of the US federal budget. It'll be interesting to discuss what types of solutions people can come up with to simultaneously balance the budget and keep taxes low--or if that's even realistically attainable, depending on one's domestic and foreign agendas.
None of the sims are perfect, of course, but some are still very good (and fun---in a political junkie kind of way
).
http://www.nathannewman.org/nbs/I personally prefer the long version to the short. This sim has as more flexability in spending decisions than any of the others. One could choose to double funding for (e.g.) food stamps, or the Pentagon---or even to eliminate funding entirely! On the down side it allows modification/elimination of tax deductions and/or the Bush tax cuts, but any additional modification of tax rates, up or down, isn't an option. Even more disappointingly the sim doesn't provide any info as to the extra-budgetary impact of one's decisions (how many divisions must be disbanded from an 'X' % cut in military personnel funding, etc). Still one of the better sims here.
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php?lesson=EM306A lesser form of the above sim. The scenario mandates no increase (or cut) of tax rates, an automatic 20% increase in military spending, and leaves Medicare & Soc. Sec. unchangeable. Even among the remaining areas of spending no more than a +/- 20% change is permitted. Even if one imposes the maximum allowed cuts in every category in merely results in a $60 billion reduction in the deficit--about one seventh of the total deficit. Hardly satisfying. Still, it is simple at least.
http://budgethero.publicradio.org/widget/widget.php?refid=apmThis one's my favorite. It allows a wide variety of spending and tax decisions, including contemporary issues like carbon emission taxes and a public option for health insurance. Better still each decision offers a good summary of the choice's impact plus balanced pro and con arguments. It estimates the long term impact of one's choices over the course of
decades, both in terms of the deficit/national debt and federal spending's share of GNP. Even the graphics are cool!
If it has a downside it doesn't allow the total flexability of the first sim to do something extremely radical like totally eliminating federal funding for education or defense spending. More realistic perhaps, but not as open to highly "creative" approaches.
http://federalbudgetchallenge.org/budget_challenge/sim/budget_master.htmlA decent sim, but basically a lesser version of Budget Hero above offering fewer choices for spending and taxes. Also limits tax increases similar to the Newman sim. Still fun though.
http://uspolitics.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=uspolitics&cdn=newsissues&tm=15&gps=150_3068_1003_592&f=11&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.kowaldesign.com/budget/(I don't have Java on my work computer, so I have no idea how worthwhile this is).
Some of these have an option to share one's budget with others, but I haven't tried to export one's budget to a Forum thread post. Extra points to anyone that can do that. I'd love to see some of fiscal theories from both the left and right applied to the hard mathematical realities of budgeting. I've applied mine with some (surprising) success. So give it a shot and share your results.
