Create Your Own Federal Budget!

[Gustaf]

Fun, but I will have to do it again, now that I'm beginning to get it. I was surprised at how simple it was to get rid of the deficit economically speaking - I just eliminated pork, cut discretionary spending, cut defence and repealed the Bush tax cuts and voila! no more deficit.

[Gustaf]

Damn I tried to eliminate every iota of tax breaks, military & veteran spending from the budget, but increasing all welfare spending by 100%.

I slightly increased the deficit by a handful of billions of dollars

using the Nathan one

I used that. I removed the Bush tax cuts, Iraq+afghanistan military operations and got rid of the deficit.

[Gustaf]

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
-----------
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
---------------
Total Increases: $817 Billion

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

Yeah, it's obviously a lot more complex in reality. One of the crucial elements right now is obviously that the deficit must be maintained in the short term even if it does have to go down in the long term.

[Gustaf]

Playing Budget Hero, it's pretty obvious that all of our fiscal problems are useless moderate heroism. Any reasonable choices results in the national debt decreasing by trillions of dollars over the next decade. Of course, given the epic fail of American politics, you can always count on the reasonable choices to not be chosen.

Did you just define moderate heroism as being unreasonable?

[Gustaf]

I ended the Bush tax cuts, eliminated all pork spending, slashed the military, and wouldn't you know it...crisis solved.

Perhaps folks in DC should play this.

Fun, but I will have to do it again, now that I'm beginning to get it. I was surprised at how simple it was to get rid of the deficit economically speaking - I just eliminated pork, cut discretionary spending, cut defence and repealed the Bush tax cuts and voila! no more deficit.