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Sirveri

(4,517 posts)
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 06:21 AM Sep 2012

Federal Budget Challenge 'game'

http://federal.budgetchallenge.org/pages/overview

It only takes maybe ten minutes unless you want to read all the pro's and con's.

Not really a stereotypical game, no aliens to shoot or tanks to order around. No this one has you making budgetary policy decisions to balance the budget! Want to try out the Republican dream budget (go ahead, you 'might' be able to balance it with some of the tax reform options (those are truly evil), but not with the Bush tax cuts), want to create a liberal dream budget (fairly easy to balance the budget then), the choice is yours! Well they'll give you 4-6 options in most categories.

From the site:
Most of the policy descriptions and cost estimates are from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and their "Budget Options" publications. Proposals not based on CBO materials are Concord Coalition estimates based on ideas and bills which are being considered or discussed by Congress. The Budget Challenge software was created by Next 10 and originally used for California.

This list of options is only intended as a representative sample of the options available to policymakers. It is neither comprehensive nor is it a list of recommendations by The Concord Coalition or Next 10.

How I did:
Well I raised the payroll tax cap, raised a 5.6% tax surcharge on incomes over 1 Million a year, cut various military spending boondoggle projects while protecting wages and tricare, dumped 60 Billion into infrastructure improvements (30 directly and 30 to a jobs bank), preserved Obamacare, added a public option to the health care exchanges (saving 88 Billion), and some other stuff and not only balanced the budget but earned an extra 380B per year! Give it a shot, you might have fun with it, really shows how brutal the Bush era tax cuts were for the economy.

About Next10: They previously made the California budget challenge game where you could balance the budget of California. That's a pretty fun toy too, I highly recommend giving it a whirl if you enjoyed this one. Also made one for the city of Alameda.
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