The game is here. Try it — it’s fun! Goal is to drop the federal debt to 60% of GDP within a certain number of years. Takes about five minutes of your time. Most frustrating thing is that some things you might want to choose (zero out the Education Department budget!) aren’t choices. On the other hand, everything listed is within the bounds of what’s politically possible now, with a slight leftward trend, of course (impose a 5% VAT is of course one of the options). Story here.
I got 63% without too much trouble, and I’d quibble by saying that extra 3% (or more!) would have been made up by the increased tax revenue from all the economic growth I started by slashing taxes. But nooo, that’s not in their scenario (I think). Anyway, a fun and interesting exercise.
You’re right. There was a very clear left-bias.
There was no option to zero out the departments of education, justice, energy, EPA or state. Likewise, there was no option to end welfare, foreign aid, or even send half or more of the federal employees home.
All their big ideas involve a tax increase. I’d of loved to see the Fair Tax as an option. (Or even a flat tax with ~no~ exceptions, deductions or thresholds.)
Seconded on the left-wing bias of the whole thing. I was only able to get down to 79%, because I refused to take any of the bait associated with cutting weapons systems or increasing taxes (especially cap’n’tax).
Would be interesting to see a Heritage Foundation version of the game. Perhaps one exists, but I am too lazy to investigate.
I made it to sixty percent, a combination of budget cuts and modest tax increases.
I would have liked to do it solely on budget cuts, but that wasn’t an option.
Definitely a lefty slant. Canceling the whole healthcare bill increases cost? Not according to the CBO. Increasing taxes is going to reduce revenue. We are well over the hump on the Laffer Curve at this point.
Jim – I’m with you. There are hundreds of thousands of federal employees at Commerce, Interior, Education, Treasury, Interior, etc. If most of them were dismissed, nobody would even notice the drop in “service”.
So decreasing a tax rate does not increase tax revenus to the government – despite evidence to the contrary from both the Reagan and Bush presidencies? I call BS on the whole exercise.