National Budget – How easy is it to fix?
It is no secret that we, as a country, are facing a pretty steep budget problem. In a previous post I have discussed Texas’ budget crisis, but I felt it was worth talking about on a national level. There is very nifty New York Times web applet that allows you to work on the budget crisis. It lets you choose things that have been proposed to slash the budget, and see the short term and long term ramifications of your choices/actions.
Taken seriously, this little exercise has some tough choices. Social Security reform, postponing the retirement age, postponing or eliminating Medicare for the wealthy, tax reform, bank tax, national sales tax, defense budget cuts. The cool thing about this program is that it gives you the opportunity to hit it out of the park. I went into this with the mindset that I did not just want to balance the budget but I wanted to create a surplus to lower the national debt. When I finished I had balanced the budget and created a project revenue of $502 billion by 2015, and $1.5 trillion by 2030. My focus was, but not limited to, tax reform and defense budget cuts. The interesting thing about this, for me, and that I had no problem reducing the amount of mortgage deductions and I own a home.
The non-hesitation on my part and conversations that I have had with regular citizens, who are conservative and liberal, shows me that Americans are willing to sacrifice if we know that our sacrifice is not lining the pockets of politicians and corporations. If there was a way for me to prove that the saved money would go towards paying off the national debt, I would happily give my money up. All politicians have to do is ask.
Click here to see what I chose to cut.
