You Fix The Budget

Here's an interesting interactive app that shows all of the various proposed cuts to spending and increases in taxes currently on the table, and how much they are projected to save or contribute.

Your goal is to fix the US federal budget gaps for both 2015 and 2030. I'm interested to see how people choose to do it.

Need to save your country from economic turmoil? There's an app for that.

Interesting...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=n3ujh9r2

axe to social security/defense

tax hikes on the rich

moderate estate tax

tried to leave health care alone

i would have cut certain government programs if they let me line-item it but i did not like their bundle

Here is my attempt at it.. Huge cuts to defence in general, and increases in tax etc to the rich where possible.

So apparently, it's possible to solve it all just on saving, with 0 additional taxing.

Now that's strange.

reducing troops to 30k by 2013 might sound good on a chart but just isn't logistically or politically practical

i'd honestly rather have the option to pack up and leave entirely before we had 15k troops in each country

a vat tax in america would have rioting in the streets

(of course social security just might as well)

So you can balance the budget without raising any taxes at all amazing >.>

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zxfrc000

FML accidentally quoted not edited.

Didn't save the page properly, but I managed to save quite a bit for the budget, with 62% from cuts and 38% from taxes. I tried to leave state programs and healthcare alone. Cut some defense areas, but tried not to reduce any overall workforce areas. Very cool app.

I want to cut pay on federal workers cause *** feds

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=8vt5f50k

Meh.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=wc1245qk

Fixed!

You're Welcome!

All without losing any existing jobs too.

Increasing SS retirement age seems like such a terrible option to have included.

Easy choices for me; first of all I get rid of the entitlement perspective and secondarily I treat medicade/medicare/social security like the Ponzi scheme it currently is ->

DOMESTIC PROGRAMS: selected eliminate earmarks, eliminate farm subsidies, cut pay of fed workers by 5%, cut fed workforce by 10%, cut 250k fed contractors, select other cuts to fed govt, cut aid to states by 5%;
MILITARY: nothing (as its one of the primary purposes of the federal govt.);
HEALTH CARE: enact medical malpractice reform, increase medicare eligibility age to 70, Reduce the tax break for employer-provided health insurance, Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013;
SOCIAL SECURITY: Raise the Social Security retirement age to 70, Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes, Tighten eligibility for disability, Use an alternate measure for inflation,;
EXISTING TAXES: The Lincoln-Kyl proposal;
INVESTMENT TAXES: nothing;
THE BUSH TAX CUTS: nothing;
NEW TAXES AND TAX REFORM: Eliminate loopholes, reduce rates (Bowles-Simpson plan), National sales tax, Bank Tax.

End result: 2015- budget surplus 37 billion, 2030- budget surplus 599 billion.

Final comment: I'm 53 and a blue collar worker at an autoplant. Work for a living and pull your weight - no more free rides. Re Charity: let the wallets of those asking "what about it?" speak the loudest.

It has to be done eventually. What happens when Americans live an average of 90 years and only pay into the system for 40? We cant sustain SS without increasing the age.

I think everyone eliminated earmarks so far. lol

Like Sevourn said, some of it was kind of bunched up and it made me not really want to click it. But this is the gist of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=hu65h011

General idea:
Reduce the size of government.

Think we should pull out of most military operations, but keep researching. It can't be done immediately, but needs to be done.

Medicare and Social Security are such huge, wasteful programs, as such, big changes need to be made.

Reform taxes, but don't increase them.

I saw this earlier today but didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Thanks for posting this Jaerik.

Here's my plan. I'll send an invoice to Congress requesting payment for the 10 minutes of time I spent fixing the budget. America, you're welcome:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=2j2k4bm9

Overall, 50% of my savings come from spending cuts, and the other 50% came from tax increases on those who could afford it if their common sense was as healthy as their pocketbooks.

Since I didn't have the option to outright abolish the Department of Homeland Security, I opted for the 5% pay cut for Federal employees and cut contracts for private contractors. Many states are not in healthy economic shape, so I preserved their aid. Same with foreign nations.

Aside from cutting the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 troops by 2013 (which doesn't seem realistic...but neither is this budget-cutting exercise!), I left the military alone.

Defensive medicine is enormously expensive. I enacted medical malpractice reform (doctors and hospitals are not lottery tickets), and I capped Medicare growth. I do not need to see three specialists and order a battery of expensive tests for some harmless mole on my leg that my family doctor's known about since I was 5 years old.

In terms of medical costs, we all need to do our part. Hospitals and doctors are enormously wasteful spenders (and spend lots of money on insurance and defense of lawsuits), and we Americans generally live tremendously unhealthy lifestyles. We also need to shift our primary care providers from ER doctors to the offices of primary care physicians.

I reduced Social Security payments to those with high incomes.

As for tax policy, I generally chose President Obama's proposals. They're a comfortable middle ground between the higher taxes of the 90s and the 2000s Republican policy of not taxing rich people at all.

I also chose the Bank Tax. I approve of higher taxes on risky investment holdings, especially since I know my tax dollars are on the line. The US government did earn profit off the TARP bailouts, and I'd like to continue earning profits off the riskiest banks in order to finance their bailouts and soften the financial blow from their collapses.

This is my proposed budget plan. I really have no clue as to what I did.

Oh, I thought this was going to be about SE's falling stock prices.

Lol, you didn't copy the link right.

and yet those people are the ones who posted 'lower defense spending' lol

meh

4% Taxes
96% Cuts

To me the biggest no-brainer was actually the government contractors. I watched the most interesting report on the wasteful spending in the intelligence field for example, where the lack of shared intelligence between contractors resulted in many of them learning little more than was already known by other contractors. I don't like the idea of contractors in general though really.

As a show of good faith to people like (unless he made it up/exaggerated) Excelior's uncle, I didn't opt for tax expirations for $250k+. I did check an option for estate taxes, though the most light tax proposal was chosen. I liked Obama's proposal as far as investment taxes go.

I am very much against raising the SS retirement age, as poorer Americans don't have the same longevity of those with more wealth to afford all of their health needs. I saw my grandmother pass away two weeks ago, months after she started collecting SS, and many years after health problems made working painful for her. She paid into SS all her life but her ailing health made it so she saw almost none of that money and lived an uncomfortable life in her final years. I don't know... I may have a bias here but I didn't want to raise it.

As popular as medicare is, it is wasteful and hopefully as health care costs become lower, there will be non-government alternatives to it.

Besides the frequent posts with insults and name-calling, I like Excelior more than I expected a few days ago. While most of the tax revenue do come from the rich, I still believe they shouldn't be taxed at the same rate as the poor necessarily. They have the money to live comfortably, the way they want. Even if they pay a larger % of their income in taxes. I don't believe we should tax the hell out of the rich though, punishing success is wrong to me.

I actually saw the tax % being greater before I started, guess I'm not quite as liberal as I thought.

ffxiah for president for 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=j02q70r4

my attempt at this

26% from Taxes
74% from spending cuts


Cut foreign aid in half
I say, America comes first. Especially when people in other countries are always so quick to bash America and the last ones to offer any assistance when we need it.

Eliminate earmarks
Elected officials aren't in office so they cant give their buddies a kickback.


Cut pay of civilian federal workers by 5 percent
Reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent
Cut 250,000 government contractors
The Private Sector can do everything the Government can do only better, plus it increases the economy and the national GDP.

Cut aid to states by 5 percent
States will regulate themselves better when they know they can't rely on the Federal system to fix their screw ups.

Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending
What are we going to do with 1,000+ nuclear warheads? Especially when we'll never use them because the current government fad is political correctness. Which makes us seem like a bunch of pussies.


Increase the Medicare eligibility age to 70
Reduce the tax break for employer-provided health insurance
Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013
Raise the Social Security retirement age to 70
Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes
If you want to rely on the government to plan your retirement and your health care go move to France. Otherwise you should be perfectly capable of taking care of yourself and realizing that by the time you're 60 you may not be able to work and should have started putting away savings from the time you were 30.

Tighten eligibility for disability
cause people should be self reliant

Eliminate loopholes, reduce rates (Bowles-Simpson plan)
Free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
Less taxes on business for being successful = more business that stays in America = Increased GDP and possibly more innovation.

National sales tax
It's the closest thing listed to a flat tax.


I left all the military things alone because I think if you're willing to die for your country, you shouldn't have the benefits promised to you taken away by said country.

I don't see why. When social security was introduced, the retirement age was 65, the life expectancy for men was 58, and the life expectancy for women was 65.

It was designed as basic life support for those who were absolutely decrepit, and as a money gaining measure for the government, as they expected most people to pay in for their working lives and not live long enough to collect.

It was never designed to support a populace who lives 20 to 30 years beyond the retirement age. It's a nice thought, but budget-wise, it's simply not practical.

If i was king for a day, i'd eliminate Social Security altogether and put planning for retirement back into the hands of the individual, where it belongs.