Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget

[FrozenPie]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

I got this off reddit, haha what would you guys cut & tax?

Here's mine: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zzxrh5yh

I just checked everything and solved our deficit! xP

[TCE]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zzx7c000

Mine. I didn't increase taxes at all, even though I would cut a LOT more than they do.

[sofia]

I cut the military/overseas spending from 1 trillion down to 100 billion. This saves 900 billion AND still leaves us with double of what China spends.

A 900 billion savings would just about allow for the aboilition of the income tax (which takes in about 1 trillion)

I shut down dept of education....50 billion saved.

I raise SS age to 68 and kick off the well-to-do who receive SS (This is a band aid until we can get rid of SS altogether)

Medicare gets means tested....

Dept of Energy...Homeland security.....HUD...Agriculture......all go bye-bye

The resulting economic boom will save many billions on unemployment and food stamps.


I restore gold/silver...

I repudiate the national debt by declaring bankruptcy....This saves 300 billion on interest.

[RSLudlum]

Did it without any tax increases; only cuts and a fudgy option on an alternate measure for inflation.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zzxph000

[low preference guy]

With the only option is to cut half of foreign aid? I want to CUT IT ALL.

[TCE]

With the only option is to cut half of foreign aid? I want to CUT IT ALL.

The most depressing part is, even them cutting 10% is wishful thinking on our parts. And if Israel is ever in need of aid, it'll be ramped up big time.

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zrxkp020

slash and burned the mil and gvmt largeness - though really I wanted to cut more as to size of gvmt vs social programs and raising taxes. Wasn't going to raise taxes at all but the one only for income over 1M didn't sound that bad and I needed a few bucks to balance the budget. tried to give back where I could - retirement age, etc. Kept the rather minor funding for research, the Smithsonian and the park service - I know, I know... not in the constitution... I don't really care.

-t

[Texan4Life]

easiest puzzle i have ever done... too bad elected officials can't

[tangent4ronpaul]

Just because I have a pessimistic and sarcastic streak, I tried filling it out the way I I expect our Congress critters want to, though probably don't dare to if they want another term. In short, I cut anything the public likes, raised taxes to the max, raised retirement, etc to 70yo and so on while not touching mil spending.

Left me with a nice budget surplus, of over 3Trillion! - that will be a good start to cover the wars in Pakistan, Syria, Iran, N. Korea and the Second Civil War here at home, that this budget will surely kick off... :D

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=8407h5yh

I really hope the NYT's summarizes the votes so we can see what the public wants to cut. I bet it will be very different than what the gvmt wants to cut.

-t

[low preference guy]

The most depressing part is, even them cutting 10% is wishful thinking on our parts. And if Israel is ever in need of aid, it'll be ramped up big time.

i don't think it's wishful thinking. i think it's inevitable. it'll be cut voluntarily, or it'll be cut because there is no money. i don't think the foreigners are going to finance it forever. germany, china, and others are getting bolder and even criticized the fed. that's unprecedented.

[jclay2]

I didn't see the inflation tax on there. Clearly, this will be the solution used by the congress. Print the money and devalue everyone's savings while increasing government spending. Why worry about debt when you can print money! HEHEHEH /endsarc

Too bad, this is the most likely outcome.

[RonPaulwillWin]

tried my best

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zptpgk04

[tangent4ronpaul]

I didn't see the inflation tax on there. Clearly, this will be the solution used by the congress. Print the money and devalue everyone's savings while increasing government spending. Why worry about debt when you can print money! HEHEHEH /endsarc

Too bad, this is the most likely outcome.

It sorta was on there... they want to re-define inflation, so they pay out less in cost of living increases... :rolleyes:

-t

[Imperial]

In some degree I couldn't get my ideal budget because some things are just off the table. Some things on my wishlist:

1) Where is the freaking drug war? I could easily see legalize marijuana nationally (states can still ban it) and putting a 1% federal sin tax on it.
2) Please cut more foreign aid. To institutionalize foreign aid is a massive problem; to me, it seems to downgrade the significance of those who may actually need it in emergencies, like the floods in Pakistan or earthquakes in Haiti.

That said, I still managed to balance the budget. I was a little bit torn getting to the very end trying to close the last of the 2030 deficit. I ended up going for malpractice reform to close it, but I am skeptical of its constitutionality. I managed to avoid cutting state aid to states (something great in the long-term, but really just shifting costs around more than anything else in the status quo, raising medicare and social security to 70 (instead to 68), decreasing social security for high income earners (which is targeting groups by the government, breaking the idea of general rules), and decreasing tax breaks for employers (since this would be a hidden tax in itself on employers mandated to provide insurance and then after this pay taxes with these new costs).

I did go for the close loopholes plan and lower tax rates in general- groups should not get special benefits at the expense of the whole.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zvxtl010

[tangent4ronpaul]

i don't think it's wishful thinking. i think it's inevitable. it'll be cut voluntarily, or it'll be cut because there is no money. i don't think the foreigners are going to finance it forever. germany, china, and others are getting bolder and even criticized the fed. that's unprecedented.

on that one, while the size of the federal work force seems to have remained level, their pay has doubled and the size of teh government has more than doubled. The new "employees" are all contractors, and it looks like most work for DHS and DoD. Cut about 2 Million to 2.5 million jobs here and the problem is largely solved.

-t

[Pauls' Revere]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

I allowed the Bush tax cuts for incomes under $250K to expire in the hopes that this gives incentive to become rich and avoid taxes. Instead of punishing income.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Not enough items listed for cuts in Military, State Department, DHS, Capital Hill Expenditures, & Judicial System is completely missing.

Did ypu know that the Judicial Branch of government gets to keep all unspent monies from each calendar budget. Additionally, Judges receive 100% pay for their retirement pensions.

End the POLICE STATE too.

[Jordan]

Capping Medicare growth would probably save a lot more than $500 billion. If we capped Medicare payments at GDP+1%, we'd probably end up with a lot of doctors telling Medicare patients to go away.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Not enough items listed for cuts in Military, State Department, DHS, Capital Hill Expenditures, & Judicial System is completely missing.

Did ypu know that the Judicial Branch of government gets to all unspent monies from each calendar budget.

The Federal Government has ever had "unspent monies" :confused: I could have sworn they had a 100% track record of spending more than they had... Oh, wait - there was that one year with Clintoon but that wouldn't have been a "surplus" if they had bothered to pay off some of the debt.

-t

[Koz]

With the only option is to cut half of foreign aid? I want to CUT IT ALL.

+1

Actually, can we get any of that money back from past years? Just askin.

[Elwar]

Foreign aid should turn into "Foreign investment" for any type of foreign spending done.

If China can buy our bonds, why don't we buy bonds of other countries?

[tangent4ronpaul]

Foreign aid should turn into "Foreign investment" for any type of foreign spending done.

If China can buy our bonds, why don't we buy bonds of other countries?

Probably because most countries names change too often to be safe investments.

-t

[raistlinkishtar]

Why weren't we given a chance to reduce spending on welfare programs? That would seem like one of the most obvious choices for a place to cut.

[Original_Intent]

I'd start with a 20% pay cut to all government employees, Get rid of the Dept of Education, get all military out of all foreign countries who would not take over the costs, raise the age of Social Security, provide the option to opt out (with a one time payout of contributions to date)....that's a start...

[RM918]

Managed to pull off 100% spending cuts, but I wasn't able to cut NEARLY as much as I wanted.

[HOLLYWOOD]

The Federal Government has ever had "unspent monies" :confused: I could have sworn they had a 100% track record of spending more than they had... Oh, wait - there was that one year with Clintoon but that wouldn't have been a "surplus" if they had bothered to pay off some of the debt.

-t


Funny... as most people in this country (DUMBOCRATS) bark about Clinton's Surplus, they all forget how the accounting fraud gave the impression of a Surplus. The Government Scumbags just had the People's PONZI scheme program called Social Security, buy the Government's Debt.

[EndDaFed]

I need to read up on the Bowles-Simpson plan. It looks good on the surface. Eliminating special tax deductions would be nice, but doubt that would ever happen because lobbyists worked their asses off getting them in place. It would be great if the income tax was simple. You could lower all the tax brackets and might be able to have the same amount of revenue generated if all deductions were done away with. Right now marriage and reproduction are heavily subsidized by the federal government.

[erowe1]

This puzzle is pretty handy. It's a good tool to use to show people that we can eliminate the federal deficit entirely with very modest spending cuts without any tax increases.

[Ricky201]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zzxph000

I was able to do it, but there weren't enough options. Foreign aid should be cut all together. I think you could get some liberal constituents to put pressure on their representatives to eliminated the FCC, the DEA, the Department of Homeland Security (especially that one when you put Bush's label on it). I don't know many moderate-democrats that are huge fans of those institutions. Also I don't think I saw an option to get our troops out of Japan, Korea, Germany, etc. I would love to get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq, but that is a pipe dream.

[dannno]

Fiiiniissheed

[Nate-ForLiberty]

wow, this is EASY

[Ninja Homer]

If you can't solve that puzzle without raising taxes, you aren't qualified to be a politician.

[FrozenPie]

Once we get a balance budget, how do you suppose we pay off the debt?

[MozoVote]

If you can come within 10 billion of balancing it in this quiz, then surely you can find the rest among the items which were not provided in the choices.

I spread the pain around, came within 4 billion. Reluctantly accepted a few of the rollback taxes. But no way would I go for the national sales tax. Talk about the camel's nose! How much more data would the government gather on us, if we allowed that??

[awake]

Cap the budget and reduce the total amount to to 1776 levels by 2020. The climate will change.

[TCE]

Once we get a balance budget, how do you suppose we pay off the debt?

That would be the million dollar question, except we'll never get to that point anyway. The government would have to have a surplus of $1 trillion each year just to pay off the debt in 14 years, and we're $1.6 trillion in deficit every year. Makes one think.

[QueenB4Liberty]

If you can't solve that puzzle without raising taxes, you aren't qualified to be a politician.

Yup. I balanced the budget without raising taxes. But yeah, I would've cut SO much more. Didn't even touch most of the departments or welfare.