Budget Hero
For those of you concerned about the future (eg. whether Mr. Decker and I will be comfortable in retirement) click on the Budget Hero link and solve our nation's financial dilemma. You get to chose what is important, how you wish to spend our tax dollars, and what you wish to do to taxes. Make some important decisions about the US and see the impact it has on our budget.
Be sure and respond with how successful you were at balancing the books and what you had to do to Mr. Decker's health care, my Social Security and our grandchildren's education to do it though.
Please respond by the time we take our Test on Congress.
Enjoy,
Mr. Thompson
posted by erdecker @ 11:23 AM
36 comments
36 Comments:
At first, any changes that I made to the budget only affected the budget bust by a few years. However, as soon as I reduced payments to Medicare, the budget bust jumped to 2070+. At that point, I put all of the funding that I could into education, and it didn't affect the budget bust year at all. I thought it was interesting that a reduction in Medicare costs could fund all of the education spending that was available.
Another thing that made a big impact was when i tested the "repeal Bush tax cuts, tax the rich" card. This not only kept the budget bust year at 70+, but also lowered the debt by 4.8 trillion.
I didn't make any big changes to social security that affected the budget bust or the national debt.
Cards I Played:
-Bring Troops Home Soon
-End No Child Left Behind
-More funding for arts in school
-Eliminate pork barrell spending
-Add money for kid's health care
-Reduce Payments to Medicare
-Increase Social Security taxes for wealthy
-Cut Social Security for wealthy
-Double funds for finding alternative energy
-Repeal Bush tax cuts, tax the rich
These choices reduced the debt from 70.3% of the GDP in 2009 to 40.6% of the GDP in 2019. I delayed the budget bust until after the year 2070 and shrank the size of the government from 23.4% of the GDP in 2009 to 21.1% in 2019.
Although my plan needs work, I could afford to expand a couple of programs high on my priority list while still cutting out some costs. The rich, however, would probably kill me for jacking up their taxes and taking away the benefits they get from them. Oh well!
I tried to cut from defense, social security, and health care while funding schools, infrastructure, and alternative energy.
I repealed all the Bush tax cuts to start. Then I raised the gas tax and put in a carbon emissions tax. I killed pork barrel spending and lowered administrative costs as much as possible. I cut health care costs where it didn't actually hurt the budget bust year, and ended no child left behind. In the military, I tried to bring the troops home soon, and redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan. Past that, I cut the defense budget and foreign aid. Finally, I cut social security costs pretty much wherever possible, and increased the taxes on it for the wealthy.
My raises were pretty insignificant next to all that. I increased some education funding, but not all. Also, I increased infrastructure spending a ton and increased spending wherever alternative energy is involved.
In the end, I got the size of government down to 19.1% in 2019. My debt was 16.4% of GDP. I made the budget bust go to 2070+, as well. My budget would decrease debt, but because of my tax increases, social security and health care cuts, and my defense budget slashing, I would be hated by almost everyone in the country.
Cards I played:
-Redeploy troops in Iraq to -Afghanistan
-No more trade assistance
-Cut foreign aid
-Cut military spending by 10 percent
-Bring troops home soon
-Increase Medicare costs for wealthy
-Slow Social Security benefit rise
-Cut benefits across the board
-No state, local tax deduction
My choices reduced the debt from 62.6% of the GDP in 2011 to 34.3% of the GDP in 2020. I set back the budget bust untile after the year 2070. I shrank the size of the government from 24.6% of the GDP in 2010 to 19.6% in 2020.
Yeah were gonna be alright.
I was surprised how much I really seemed to enjoy this, and I even went back to try and make myself an even better budget hero. And like Emilie said, as soon as I repealed the Bush Tax Cuts, I seemed to automatically change everything. I didn't touch the IOU section and I mainly made cuts to healthcare and Social Security. Although I did repeal No Child Left behind. And when I saw how much is spent on just Health Care alone, I was shocked, and I was surprised by how much money I had to funnel into other parts of the budget which were beneficial for everyone.
The cards I played were to raise the social security age, repeal Bush's tax cuts and tax the rich, End no child left behind, and bring troops home gradually. By doing this I lowered the national debt from 70.3% of GDP to 50.7% of GDP. I picked these cards by analyzing the pros and cons, and focusing on national security, making the government more efficient, and getting America to have a competitive advantage. One thing I also did was downsize the government from 23.4% to 22.3% of GDP which I’m not sure is a good thing or a bad thing according to the game but I think it’s good because I believe that the less power the government has over the people makes us a real capitalist nation.
I gave a lot of funding for the schools, most specifically for the arts. That did not help the budget, however, I cut social security as much as I could so it could be highly private. Doctor's payments were cut and Medicare fees were raised, cutting the budget, ever so slightly. In the end, I could not control the budget hardly at all, so attempting to accomplish the things that made sense to me, while still cutting the budget proved difficult. However, I did delay the "budget bust" from 2031 to 2046, so it was not a complete waste.
Anthony Schliesman
Well pretty much, I cut a little off of Military, a lot off health care, a tiny bit out of social security, and I pretty much nuked Misc. with all that stupid pork spending. Then I added on to the schools, sciences, and housing. I didn't even touch infrastructure at all. A couple of the cards I played were Send Iraq troops to Afghanistan and Eliminate Pork Barrel. I managed to get the Deficit/Surplus into the right/green/positive/awesome side and lowered the size of the government a little to the left.
I had to play this game many times and my results were pretty much the same each time I tried something new. For example, I lowered the debt by 70.3% of GDP in 2009 ($14.8 trillion)to 36.0% of GDP in 2019 (7.6 trillion)each time I played, which I thought was weird. I delayed the budget bust pushing from 2031 to 2070+ and I shrank the government each time I played. I couldn't figure out which cards to play in order to keep the government the same. Oh, and before I played I just did like a 'controlled experiment';I didn't play any cards and they scolded me about not changing anything, but I did maintain the debt. The last time I played, I tried to tax a lot to lower the IOU and to help pay for other things like health care and education. Something that made a big difference when I played the card was 'repeal Bush tax cuts' and 'adding 50 cents to gas tax' which lowered the debt by a majority. I thought this game was hard to figure out especially when I had troubles filling my badges up and keep everything else low like the debt.
I was awful at this! At first, after I took away Bush's tax cuts and taxed the rich, my debt went way down. But I didn't see a really good way to save on defense without totally weakening it. I wanted to add more research for green energy, but it was too expensive as well. With my plan, the debt went down, but then started to grow after about ten years or so. The health care building practically exploded. The only think I really did that was helpful was delay the budget bust for children from 2031 to 2044.
The biggest card I played was funding research on energy (+150 B) , while the smallest one was cutting pork barrel spending in half (-121 B). For me, this was mind boggling and almost a no win situation.
I was a downsizer! I shrank the gov't down from 23.4% to 18.5%. I delayed the bust until 2062 and brought the debt down from 70.3% to 28.1%. I cut lots of big programs that cost a lot of money, but I'm particularly proud of the cuts I made to education and housing for the poor that are certain to earn me a special place in hell. I sacrificed all my morality and values to try and balance that budget.
Clearly I am a budget hero. Although I cut almost everything, and anything, by 2019 I had the debt down to $6.3 trillion from $14.8 in 2009. The biggest and best card I played was the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Even in real life I would play this card. The corporations don't use the deductions to create new jobs, as proved by AIG who decided to hand out millions in bonuses with stimulus money. In addition, I shrunk the role of the government in the economy, which would surely please those maverick tea-party folks.
As I a certified lean, mean budget-cutting machine, I have cut all of the unnecessary costs which was bogging down the nation.
Some of the cards that I played:
Cut Military Spending By 10%
Repeal Bush Tax Cuts, tax the rich
Tax High-Premium Health Insurance
Add 50 Cents to the Gas tax
Reduce Payments to Medicare
Call me Scrooge, but I helped the budget bust be delayed for 35 years. I have also downsized the government, so America can continue to prosper through what it does best, capitalism. I have also practically abolished debt by more than 50%. Obviously, the Age of Sanjeev was most profitable.
As the "Budget Hero", it was easiest to get into a surplus by simply cutting everything possible from Healthcare and Social Security. Of course, I'm very biased in this area because I've had little opportunity to collect the benefits of either of these programs, so why not get rid of them? Along with that, I continued to strengthen my chances of staying in office by pandering to young people. Since many older people will die without government funding, there would be no one to oppose the youth vote. Thus, I maxed out funding for education. I also funded all programs for cleaner environments to ensure a better world for tomorrow. The only way that I found to get completely out of debt was to repeal Bush's tax cuts and tax the rich. Which also benefits a majority of the middle class, plus it might gain me some votes for getting something done that was worthwhile.
In this instance, I reduced the debt by $9.4 trillion and the government budget by $0.9 trillion.
I just redid my budget completely by spending all money possible and repealing all taxes and I ended up doubling the debt to $28.9 trillion and increasing the government budget to $6.2 trillion. Of course, the economy crashed in 2018 according to the simulator, but the current year was 2019.
I just focused on making the government get out of debt. I mostly focused on social security, defense, taxes and health insurance. I raised the social security age, increased medicare payments and taxed high premium health health insurances. I raised taxes for the wealthy and on stopping greenhouse gases. I also cut military spending and brought the troops back home soon. I lowered the debt by 14.8 trillion in 2009 and 6.0 trillion in 2019. I also shrank the government and pushed the bust until sometime after 2070.
I think I was pretty dang good at Budget Hero. I pushed the bust past 2070, reduced the debt to 7.2 trillion, and shrank the government from 23.5% of GDP to 21.0%.
I did this all while computerizing health care, funding arts in schools, funding mass transit giving workers tax credits helping needy college students, funding research on clean energy, protecting endangered species, increasing National Science Foundation grants by 50%, and fighting AIDS.
I managed all that by some obvious cuts: I eliminated Bush tax cuts, added a gas tax, taxed greenhouse emissions, cleaned out the pork barrel, bringing home troops and redeploying some from Iraq to Afghanistan, raising the social security age, and grounding deep space exploration from NASA.
In conclusion, I am the boss and not Nishant.
Budget Hero was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be! After playing this a few times, I was able to achieve a semi-decent result. I was able to push the budget bust back to 2065 and I reduced the debt from being 70.3% of the GDP to 48.6%.
I really attacked Medicare by reducing and freezing payments for Medicare. I did this because it is the second largest expense in the US budget.
I also added fifty cents to the gas tax and that seemingly small amount seemed to go a long way, which I found interesting.
Lastly, I down sized the government's role from 23.4% to 20.5%.
At the end, when I was piling up taxes for the rich just to see how long the budget would go out, I found the statistics to be interesting - 35% of people who played wanted to repeal the Bush tax cuts and tax the rich, along with 24% wanting to increase SS taxes for the wealthy. Only playing those two cards, the budget bust moves to 2050. When I added in a bunch more random taxes, I extended it to 2066 and reduced the debt by half. Of course, stacking taxes and not adjusting any other programs isn't the way to go, but it was just interesting seeing the big effects they have.
I played a lot of different cards but my "biggest" ones were cutting military spending by 10%, repealing Bush tax cuts and taxing the rich, cutting discretionary spending, capping and limiting greenhouse gases, and taxing high-premium health insurance.
I delayed the budget bust to 2070+ by downsizing the government (23.4% to 21.4%) and reducing the debt from $14.8 trillion to $7.8 trillion.
Overall, I did pretty well and managed to earn my badges in Green, Efficient Government, and Competitive Advantage!
Budget Hero was actually quite interesting. I had fun playing around with the budget but I am definitely glad that I don’t actually have to decide what goes into it. It was hard enough trying to figure out what cards to play in the game.
Some of the biggest cards I played were repealing the Bush tax cuts, reducing payments Medicare and cutting discretionary spending. With just those three cards I was able expand funds in K-12, educate disabled children, and increase spending for arts in school.
I also earned the efficient government badge by cutting the PORK spending in half, ending missile defense, and cutting other small expenses.
In the end, I reduced the debt from 14.8 trillion in 2009 to 9.8 trillion in 2019, I delayed the budget bust to 2070+, and I shrank the size of the government from 23.4% of GDP to 21.7% of GDP.
I chose "competitive advantage" and "health and wellness" as my two main badges. I noticed that playing cards with values of less than $100 billion did little to impact the budget. My "Big Cards" were in Defense and Diplomacy. I chose to play the Bring Troops Home soon card which had a value of -$210 billion. I also repealed the Bush tax cuts. This had the biggest impact on the debt. After reducing Medicare payments, I was able to put all that money into funding for education. It was disappointing that even after spending so much money on education, the needles on my budget did not move. I chose not to touch Social Security. The game gave me a visual of where our government is choosing to spend its money. I reduced the debt from 70.3% of GDP (14.8 Tillion) to 42.7% of GDP ($9.0 Trillion). I shrank the size of the government from 23.4% of GDP in 2009 to 20.8% of GDP in 2019. Clearly I'm a downsizer!
In mine I did not achieve any badges but I was able to push the budget bust back until 2063. I was also able to reduce the debt from 70.3% of GDP in 2009 to only 9.3% of GDP in 2019. My plan would be a good short term way to go and if the economy improved in the next 10 to 20 years that 9.3% of debt might be able to vanish if policies at that time began to limit health care and social security spending. In order to get this I had to use 23 different policies such as repealing tax cuts adding a cap on green house gasses. Many of my policies ended benefits for big corporations and would help the lower class citizens and tax the rich. Also by cutting breaks for oil companies and raising the gas tax by 50 cents gas would be outrageously priced which would be good for America and the environment. I think my plan is practical but anyone pushing my plan would never be allowed to stay in office by the corporate higher ups.
i found that if you pick the right badges, you can fill those easily and cut other things that would be a major problem to cut today. According to the game i didnt make anyone extremely mad while i cut most of the big corporation funding.
True to my roots, I went small government when I tried to balance the budget. I cut medicare spending and social security, particularily for the wealthy. I brought the troops home from Afghanistan, which helped the budget significantly. I also eliminated pork barrel spending completely. I cut federal spending for highways, which helped me a lot. The last thing I cut was no child left behind, which doesn't work anyway. The only area where I added spending was for arts in schools, which was not a high cost. As for taxes, I kept the Bush Tax Cuts and only increased taxes on carbon dioxide emissions and gas (I rose the tax by 50 cents). Though I might not be a popular guy by the time this was over, I was able to create a budget surplus that would eventually balance our nations debt and get us back on the right track. In general, I think I cut things that could be replaced by private industry (like health care), which is what I was going for.
Okay, when I first started this, I kinda just started clicking random stuff and didn't understand what I was doing. However, after a few tries I got a little more serious and chose the following as my main priorities;
- Going Green
- Energy Independence
- Competitive Advantage
First, I increased the gas tax, tobacco tax, and introduced a greenhouse emittance tax. I then increased spending in all forms of public transit. This basically filled my requirements for both energy independence and going green. To add to that, I increased funding for alternative energy sources and protection of the environment.
Secondly, I increased basically everything in schooling.
I cut military spending by 10%, brought troops back right away, cut Bush Tax breaks, raised Social Security and Medicare ages, and eliminated pork spending completely.
In the end, I lowered the debt from 14.8 trillion to 6.3 trillion, decreased the size of government by 2.4%, and made the budget last to 2070+.
This activity made me realize how hard balancing the budget actually is. We're always complaining about how this or that is either going unfunded or over-funded, but we can't just go and start funding things and not affect our economy. We have to start making cuts to balance the funding and that's where people start getting unhappy.
It was more difficult than I thought it would be to make decisions about what to cut and what to add to because I wanted to make as many people happy as possible. Not far into the game I realized that wasn't going to be possible and had more success. The trend for my choices often leaned toward pushing costs on the wealthier and covering more of the poor/low-income for Health Care, Social Security, and Education.
Overall I decreased the debt to $7.5 trillion in 2019 (37.1% of GDP), with a $306 billion surplus, and the budget bust at 2070+. The the budget I formed, the debt would be down to 14.7% of GDP by 2029 with a $374 billion surplus.
I've played budget hero before so the first thing I did was repeal the bush tax cuts. I could have probably stopped there and have been fine. The next think I did was to limit green house gases. Then I increased SS taxes for the wealthy. After I did all that I did stuff to boost my imaginary approval rating, I increased spending in all areas of education and the arts as well as promoting green technology and increasing infrastructure and finally giving health benefits to the poor.
Taylor Thompson
Budget Hero was difficult. I played numerous times and wasn't happy after any of them. With that...this is the best I could come up with.
The biggest cards I played were Defense and Diplomacy, Eliminating pork barrel spending, and freezing medicare payments.
I shrank the sie of government from 23% of GDP to 20% of GDP.
I delayed the budget bust to 2070.
I was told "You have a way to go before you're a budget hero!" I'd have to agree.
My biggest played cards were "tax high-premium health insurance", "cut foreign aid", "cut rates for private health plans in Medicare", "reduce payments to Medicare", and "freeze Medicare payments".
I managed to reduce the debt from 70.3% of GDP in 2009 (14. 8 trillion) to 59.0% of GDP in 2019 (12.4 trillion).
I also managed to delay the budget bust from 2031 to 2019, and shrink the size of government from 23.4% of GDP in 2009 (4.9 trillion) to 21.2% of GDP in 2019 (4.4 trillion).
I was not successful. I kept in mind that I didn't want to cut too much in Medicare, because I didn't want my parents (and Decker and Thompson) to not have health care. So, instead ended up raising Social Security payments on wealthy and bringing troops home earlier. Those two were the biggest cards that helped me. Other than that, I'm really too nice to cut too many things. I'm pleaser and should not work in government.
Cards used:
-Bring troops home soon
-cut social security for the wealthy
-end no child left behind
-cut foreign aid
-more help to needy college students
I ended up reducing the debt from 10.3% in 2009 to 66.6% in 2019. I also delayed the budget from busting for 1 whole year! I also shrank the goverment size from 23.4% of GDP in 2009 to 22.8% of GDP in 2019.
How I decided what to do on budget hero was basically I went and picked cards that were my beliefs and saw where we ended up. Which I'll admit wasn't great but I helped reduce the debt. :)
I began by choosing the Green, Economic Stimulus, and Efficient Government badges.
I chose to bring the troops home and move the spending from military and defense to schools and expansion of the sciences. I brought the country out of debt and downsized the govenment GDP.
The Cards I Played:
End No Child Left Behind
Cap and Limit Greenhouse Gases
Add 50 Cents to the Gas Tax
Keep Bush Tax Cuts For Less Wealthy
Increase SS Taxes For Wealthy
Cut Military Spending by 10%
Bring Troops Home Soon
Cut Discretionary Spending
Eliminate "Pork Barrel" Projects
Raise the SS Age
Reduce Payments to Medicare
I mainly made cuts to Misc. and Defense. However, I made cuts to SS, Health care, and schools. What really made the big difference was applying more taxes to the wealthy and making our country more green.
I lowered the % GDP down to 36.4% in 2019 from 70.3%. I lowered the size of the government from 23.4% of GDP to 20.4% of GDP. I wouldn't be much liked but I would make a big dent in the current budget.
I cut down the heathcare costs by a lot, such as reduce payments to medicare and took a lot from defense, like cut military spending by 10 percent which helped reduce the debut by some, but it still wasn't going down too far. I saw most of the effect take place once i played around with the taxes. I played up the cards allowed an increase in taxes for the wealthy, a 50 cent tax increase in gases, and no state/local tax deductions, and saw a significant change and the budget bust went to 2070 and over. I played more cards such as bring the troops home and more funding for arts in school and more help to needy college kids, and cut social security for the wealthy, but this kept the budget bust over 70 and lowered the debt to 18.6 percent.
I know this probably wouldn't be the best way to go because the rich would be extremely upset along with the elderly and poor because i cut medicare/medicaid/social security benefits but it's the only way to get out of this debt!
Great job APLGers!! You are all Budget Heroes. Now the hard part! Let's see how many of you would be re-elected after shafting the rich and cutting to the bones every program near and dear to patriotic taxpaying Americans. Way to go Will for doing your best to implode the US as quickly as possible. Finally a big shout out to Taylor K. for keeping her 2 favorite APLG teachers in mind as they age gracefully.
Mr. Thompson
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