Let's balance the budget!
We need to decrease our deficit. There's bipartisan agreement on this, but where the difference occurs is how the deficit can be decreased. For all those who want to "cut the fat", "starve the beast", etc., the New York Times has a very nice interactive graphic today where you can choose exactly which programs to cut. It doesn't have the drastic proposals with limited support like eliminating the Department of Education, but it includes most proposed cuts or tax increases that have been suggested and garnered modest support.
You balance the budget
My proposal was very tax increase heavy (because taxes have been cut in every presidency since Reagan, including Obama, and that reduced income just can't be sustained), but I kept certain taxes, like the Carbon Tax, off the table. Tacking on a lot of military cuts and reducing farm subsidies, let me leave Social Security and Medicare practically untouched. However, with the increased taxes, I would also increase government projects and stimulus plans to keep the money exchanging hands, so that itself would add to the deficit and I'd probably be forced to make cuts elsewhere. However, even in this simplified form, it was fun balancing the family finances.
I would be very curious to see what a conservative's plan would look like. There's a few programs I could guess, but is it enough to balance the budget (it's not easy getting those last $300 billion)? What additional cuts would they make? Any takers?
You balance the budget
My proposal was very tax increase heavy (because taxes have been cut in every presidency since Reagan, including Obama, and that reduced income just can't be sustained), but I kept certain taxes, like the Carbon Tax, off the table. Tacking on a lot of military cuts and reducing farm subsidies, let me leave Social Security and Medicare practically untouched. However, with the increased taxes, I would also increase government projects and stimulus plans to keep the money exchanging hands, so that itself would add to the deficit and I'd probably be forced to make cuts elsewhere. However, even in this simplified form, it was fun balancing the family finances.
I would be very curious to see what a conservative's plan would look like. There's a few programs I could guess, but is it enough to balance the budget (it's not easy getting those last $300 billion)? What additional cuts would they make? Any takers?