NYT Interactive Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget

[Dominus Atheos]

Here's my solution, return the tax levels to what they were during the nineties and cut military spending.

See what you can come up with.

[The Grim Squeaker]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... s=dkqnd5qr

Taxes, Taxes, Clinton Taxes, and slow deramping of military deployment, as well as Medicare and SS age increase.
Nets a nice budget surplus no less.

[ray245]

Wait, you guys don't even have a national sales tax?

[bobalot]

Why didn't these assholes propose universal healthcare? That would save hundreds of billions of dollars over decades.

Wait, you guys don't even have a national sales tax?

There are state sales taxes which vary.

[Thanas]

Mine

No cuts to Navy, airforce and space. Mostly loopholes and taxing the rich.

[Rogue 9]

I can't help but note that for all the harping you hear from some circles about military spending, all the military cuts on the quiz combined don't even come close to solving the budget; you have[/i] to significantly raise taxes, cut entitlements, or both to fully eliminate the deficit. And yes, universal health care should be on it, but it wasn't really pushed as a deficit-control measure (which I believe was a mistake), which is probably why it's not presented as a deficit-control proposal.

[Phantasee]

Mine

• Earmarks
• Troops in Iraqistan to 60k by 2015
• Malpractice Reform
• Retirement age to 70
• Reduce SS for high incomes
• Estate tax to Clinton levels
• Obama's capital gains and dividends tax rates
• Let Bush tax cuts expire for those making over 250k
• Millionaire's tax
• Cut loopholes and keep taxes higher
• Fuck your mortgage deductions,
• and a nice fuck you to the banks.

Congratulations, you still have enough ARMY to keep brown people cowering in fear, and you have a surplus.

[TimothyC]

My choices

• Eliminate earmarks
• Eliminate farm subsidies
• Reduce troop levels to 60,000 by 2015
• Medical Malpractice Reform
• Medicare and Social Security to age 70
• Reduced social security Benefit Growth for those over the 60th income percentile
• Clinton Level Estate Tax
• President Obama's investment tax proposal
• Allow the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250k/year
• Subjection of income over $106k/year to payroll taxes
• "Millionaire's tax"
• Eliminate loopholes, with only a slight reduction in the rates
• Reduce mortgage interest deduction

[J]

I can't help but note that for all the harping you hear from some circles about military spending, all the military cuts on the quiz combined don't even come close to solving the budget; you have to significantly raise taxes, cut entitlements, or both to fully eliminate the deficit. And yes, universal health care should be on it, but it wasn't really pushed as a deficit-control measure (which I believe was a mistake), which is probably why it's not presented as a deficit-control proposal.

Indeed. My solution doesn't even touch military spending, all I did was carry out healthcare & social security reform along with allowing taxcuts to expire and closing loopholes in the tax code. The big ticket item is capping Medicare growth, take care of that and everything else is easy.

My solution

[xerex]

it would be interesting if the NY times recorded and published the most popular fixes.

[General Zod]

I dislike how the nuclear arsenal and space program are lumped in the same category.

[someone_else]

I dislike how the nuclear arsenal and space program are lumped in the same category.

Well, that's probably to have a decent sum to show as "cut money". Even if you shut down the whole NASA you get only a little more than cutting farm subsidies. (17 billions NASA vs 14 billions for farm subsidies)

[Bounty]

I dislike how the nuclear arsenal and space program are lumped in the same category.

Read the text. It's not the space program as a whole, just space-based missile defence.

Also:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... s=d2bj45rh

Little less toys, little more taxation. You can't run a balanced budget if you don't have income.

[Sea Skimmer]

Wait, you guys don't even have a national sales tax?

No and that will never change since it'd require a constitutional amendment and some US states choose to have zero sales tax. They sure wont be ratifying said amendment.

[General Zod]

I dislike how the nuclear arsenal and space program are lumped in the same category.

Read the text. It's not the space program as a whole, just space-based missile defence.

I wasn't aware we even had space-based missile defense. Isn't that supposed to be illegal anyway?

[Lusankya]

Wait, you guys don't even have a national sales tax?

No and that will never change since it'd require a constitutional amendment and some US states choose to have zero sales tax. They sure wont be ratifying said amendment.

There's no way they could abuse the commerce clause to make it legal?

[Agent Sorchus]

Here is mine. Pretty much standard, though with cuts to contractors since screwing Haliburton and their ilk is fun.

Definitely not touching the farm subsidies though.

[Uraniun235]

There's no way they could abuse the commerce clause to make it legal?

That might be too much of a stretch. Either way, it would be a huge fight. People would point to the existence of the 16th Amendment as evidence that a similar amendment would be required to authorize Congress to levy unapportioned sales taxes.

I think technically they could pass a sales tax today, but the proceeds from it would have to be spent into the states based on the population of those states - so if California has x% of the population of the US, x% of the revenue from that sales tax would have to be spent back into California. I could be wrong though.

[Elfdart]

The choices show a clear Village bias. For example, you're allowed to reduce the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to either 30,000 or 60,000 -removing all of them is not allowed.

Even with this rigged deck of cards, I was still able to solve both without screwing the elderly or disabled out of Social Security. Amazing, no?

[Simon_Jester]

Wait, you guys don't even have a national sales tax?

No and that will never change since it'd require a constitutional amendment and some US states choose to have zero sales tax. They sure wont be ratifying said amendment.

There's no way they could abuse the commerce clause to make it legal?

Another factor is that sales tax is a significant fraction of many states' income. A federal sales tax would reduce state revenue- not necessarily by a lot, but by enough to be noticed, as people buy less and therefore pay state sales tax on less.

Plus, sales taxes are at best flat and at worst regressive taxation, which is exactly what the US doesn't need more of...

[Solauren]

Quite frankly....

Without the entire federal budget in front of you, with everything nicely categorized, and verified by something like the IRS (as in audit the entire federal government, including the military, etc), you can't really do anything to balance the budget.

I mean, there are probably options to clean up the budget that no one has tried yet...

like
Centralize all IT functions, and purchase all IT related in bulk. So, instead of 1000 departments and offices buying 3000 liscences for say, Windows Vista, you now have 1 department buying 30,000,000 liscences. (That would really lower the ordering price). You'd probable have to do it by Federal Branch (i.e FBI, CIA, Education, etc), instead of all at once, but you get the idea.

Bring in an efficiency expert (or company) for each branch of the government. I'll bet you he could find ways to elminate wasteful spending.

Make all government spending that's not 'national security' spending publically viewable. Really specify what qualifies for 'national security' in this instance. You'd see alot of the porkbarrel stuff disappear.

[General Zod]

Quite frankly....

Without the entire federal budget in front of you, with everything nicely categorized, and verified by something like the IRS (as in audit the entire federal government, including the military, etc), you can't really do anything to balance the budget.

I mean, there are probably options to clean up the budget that no one has tried yet...

like
Centralize all IT functions, and purchase all IT related in bulk. So, instead of 1000 departments and offices buying 3000 liscences for say, Windows Vista, you now have 1 department buying 30,000,000 liscences. (That would really lower the ordering price). You'd probable have to do it by Federal Branch (i.e FBI, CIA, Education, etc), instead of all at once, but you get the idea.

Bring in an efficiency expert (or company) for each branch of the government. I'll bet you he could find ways to elminate wasteful spending.

Make all government spending that's not 'national security' spending publically viewable. Really specify what qualifies for 'national security' in this instance. You'd see alot of the porkbarrel stuff disappear.

Centralizing all the IT sounds like a logistical nightmare. Not every department is going to have anywhere close to the same needs or requirements.

[RedImperator]

I got a fat surplus with an Iraq/Afghanistan drawdown, bumping the retirement/Medicare age to 68, and restoring Clinton-era tax rates. That's without touching the Medicare growth cap--pass that, and you have enough free cash to pay for a "Green Manhattan Project" (nuclear/wind/solar power grid, here we come) or pay down whopping chunks of the national debt every year--probably both.

[Scottish Ninja]

I don't think that's necessarily an actual surplus - what I got from the associated articles was that the goal was to reduce the deficit to a "sustainable" level, i.e. something around 3% of GDP where the debt and therefore the interest on it doesn't remains static in relation to the economy. Obviously some level of spending cuts/additional revenue beyond that point will produce a surplus, but the puzzle doesn't explicitly define that point.

[Solauren]

Quite frankly....

(Snip)

Centralizing all the IT sounds like a logistical nightmare. Not every department is going to have anywhere close to the same needs or requirements.

That was an example that everyone could understand. The general idea is - Redundancy costs money.