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Some think tank of some sort or another has produced a website where you can go through and select from all the semi-plausible budgeting options available to the US, with the intent to get total debt to below 60% of GDP.

http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/#

Thing is, in the other thread on the US deficit I was trying to point out that debt reduction doesn't that hard a thing to do, it just requires a political will that doesn't exist. I'd be surprised if anyone here has trouble in getting it done before 2020, the trick will come from convincing others that your cuts are the ones that are needed.

Here's my effort, it basically represents an acceptance of a growth in spending by inflation, and even has more money for infrastructure and job creation. My major gains come from a reduction in overseas troop commitments, an end to the Bush tax cuts, a carbon tax and a 5% VAT.


Reduce Troops to 60,000 by 2015 -$690B
Allow All the Tax Cuts, Except for AMT Patches, to Expire $490B
Grow Regular Discretionary Spending with Inflation $0
Enact Administration's Proposed Weapon System Cuts -$30B
Increase Foreign Economic Aid by 50% $110B
Expand Veteran's Income Security Benefits $30B
Cancel Missile Defense System -$50B
Reduce Spending on Ship Building -$50B
Reverse "Grow the Army" Initiative -$90B
Cancel Unobligated ARRA Funds -$190B
Enact New Jobs Bill $100B
Increase Highway Funding by 25% $200B
Increase Years Used to Calculate Benefits -$40B
Include all New State and Local Workers -$80B
Expand Coverage to an Additional 5 Million People $130B
Increase Cost-Sharing for Medicare -$100B
Raise Medicare Premiums to 35% of Costs -$140B
Eliminate Certain Outdated Programs -$40B
Reduce Farm Subsidies -$80B
Expand Spending on Federal Research & Development $100B
Cut All Earmarks and Use Half of Savings for Deficit Reduction -$80B
Increase User Fees Across the Board -$40B
Repeal LIFO Accounting Methods and Eliminate Oil and Gas Preferences in the Tax Code -$90B
Enact Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade -$330B
Increase Gas Tax by 10 Cents per Gallon -$80B
Enact Five Percent VAT With Partial Rebate -$630B
Raise Cap to Cover 90% of Earnings -$420B
Tax Fringe Benefits as Regular Income -$70B
Limit Mortgage Interest and Other Itemized Deductions for High Earners -$250B
Curtail State and Local Tax Deduction -$470B
Replace Employer Health Care Exclusion with a Flat Credit (In Place of Excise Tax) -$340B


It'd be interesting to see how others would approach the issue.

I will have a crack at it at some point today - it sounds like a fun game


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will have a crack at it at some point today - it sounds like a fun game

It does not allow you to set your own priorities. For example, you are not allowed to let all the tax cuts expire, or decide to maintain an army of 100,000.

That was easy.

You reduced the debt to 56% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

I should go back and try this time.

Ah here we go while protecting Medicare and not raising taxes materially.

You reduced the debt to 47% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

Its a clearly biased test though.

Because as we know, economics is easy to predict and very stable!

Sadly, it didn't have the option "fire the federal government." Nog sad. :(

Kilkrazy wrote:It does not allow you to set your own priorities. For example, you are not allowed to let all the tax cuts expire, or decide to maintain an army of 100,000.

It'd be fun to have 'gain complete control of international shipping by issuing letters of marque, -$134B', but instead it's limited to the more plausible options.

Frazzled wrote:That was easy.

You reduced the debt to 56% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

I should go back and try this time.

Ah here we go while protecting Medicare and not raising taxes materially.

You reduced the debt to 47% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

It's pretty pointless if you don't tell us what you cut. And as I said above, yes, of course it's easy, because it isn't hard to tick boxes on a computer screen. What becomes clear is that actually getting the full range of cuts passed is a much different process.

Its a clearly biased test though.

I'd be quite interested in how you manage to substantiate that.

Melissia wrote:Because as we know, economics is easy to predict and very stable!

Which is exactly why no-one ever budgets for anything ever, and quantitative economics was never invented!

sebster wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It does not allow you to set your own priorities. For example, you are not allowed to let all the tax cuts expire, or decide to maintain an army of 100,000.

It'd be fun to have 'gain complete control of international shipping by issuing letters of marque, -$134B', but instead it's limited to the more plausible options.

I don't think it is that implausible to get rid of all tax cuts, or keep the army at 100,000 rather than 60,000. Current strength is over 1,100,000, and you are restricted to a cut of zero or 95% plus. There is a huge area in between that could be explored.

The BBC deficit calculator allows you to change govt expenditure on sliding scales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10373060

I can't seem to find the following solution there:

Absolve debt by strategic nuclear bombing of debt holders.

Damn! No option like that at all!

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't think it is that implausible to get rid of all tax cuts,

The remaining tax cuts are more or less clean up bits and pieces, double taxation and the like. You would sooner see new taxes, which are an option, than the cancellation of them.

or keep the army at 100,000 rather than 60,000. Current strength is over 1,100,000, and you are restricted to a cut of zero or 95% plus. There is a huge area in between that could be explored.

There's no option to cut military expenditure by 95%. It probably isn't clear if you didn't take the quiz and just read the summary of my choices, but that 60,000 number is the number of troops kept active in Iraq and Afghanisation. Actually cutting troop strength to that number would save the better part of a trillion every year. Hell, if everything else was kept equal and the US got by on 60,000 troops, they'd probably be the world's biggest creditor by 2020.

The actual long term military cuts in the link are limited to cutting some next gen programs, cutting missile defence and the navy's new boats.

The BBC deficit calculator allows you to change govt expenditure on sliding scales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10373060

That's way less fun. They don't even tell me the names of the police officers I'm firing.

WarOne wrote:I can't seem to find the following solution there:

Absolve debt by strategic nuclear bombing of debt holders.

Damn! No option like that at all!

There's also no "unleash the weiner legions to conquer the world = Profit"
*Watching WWI program while doing work yesterday. Had the Kaiser on a ship. Evidently the Kaiser had a weiner dog which was jumping up and down and making a fuss just like the Shanker.

Weiner dogs maniulating the fate of humanity since 1885.

Serioualy I like how repeal Obama care raises the deficit, but leaving it alone doesn't.
If this were a serious test. You'd have all departments in a line or at least summary line by line. Thats how you do a real budget. This is designed to foster given endings.

That's because the healthcare bill apparently has cuts in it. There is a keep the cuts option.

Thats only if you keep Medicare cuts. It doesn't take into account the budget deficit impacts of Obama care itself.

How come I can't eliminate the Department of Education?, reduce the Department of State by 50%? Lots of options can't do. But its a fun exercise.

sebster wrote:Which is exactly why no-one ever budgets for anything ever, and quantitative economics was never invented!

And yet, they still can't actually manage to predict how the economy works.

Being accurate less than 100% of the time does not mean something has no value.

sebster wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't think it is that implausible to get rid of all tax cuts,

The remaining tax cuts are more or less clean up bits and pieces, double taxation and the like. You would sooner see new taxes, which are an option, than the cancellation of them.

or keep the army at 100,000 rather than 60,000. Current strength is over 1,100,000, and you are restricted to a cut of zero or 95% plus. There is a huge area in between that could be explored.

There's no option to cut military expenditure by 95%. It probably isn't clear if you didn't take the quiz and just read the summary of my choices, but that 60,000 number is the number of troops kept active in Iraq and Afghanisation. Actually cutting troop strength to that number would save the better part of a trillion every year. Hell, if everything else was kept equal and the US got by on 60,000 troops, they'd probably be the world's biggest creditor by 2020.

The actual long term military cuts in the link are limited to cutting some next gen programs, cutting missile defence and the navy's new boats.

The BBC deficit calculator allows you to change govt expenditure on sliding scales.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10373060

That's way less fun. They don't even tell me the names of the police officers I'm firing.

I started the quiz. As soon as I found I could only choice from pre-selected options I stopped.

If I learned anything from Pinky and the Brain, it is that it is far more fun to try and destabilize a country from the comfort of one's home, or lab, as it were.

Polonius wrote:Being accurate less than 100% of the time does not mean something has no value.

I tell my boss that daily.

I think the only option I wouldn't do was the gax tax. Seeing as gas prices usually causes all other prices to rise, and that's not something to do in a recession. Later on maybe.

Frazzled wrote:Thats only if you keep Medicare cuts. It doesn't take into account the budget deficit impacts of Obama care itself.

How come I can't eliminate the Department of Education?, reduce the Department of State by 50%? Lots of options can't do. But its a fun exercise.

I don't know about the DoE, but I wouldn't mind getting rid of USPS...

What really disappointed me were some of the project cuts for DoD programs. Of all the DoD programs/projects to be cut, they didn't pick any of the ones that actually are worthless

Polonius wrote:Being accurate less than 100% of the time does not mean something has no value.

100%? They'd be lucky for a 50% sometimes. Global or even nation-level macroeconomic theory is quite frequently politics-driven rather than fact-driven. Seeing as how many economic study groups are funded for a political purpose.

Kinda like how pharmaceutical research is mostly based on efficacy tests rather than other, better tests, because efficacy tests help the pharmaceutical industry twist numbers into sales pitches while minimizing the potential data about side effects or any other negative facts.

Are you saying they're incapable of accurate predictions, or are you saying that their predictions tend to be the result of biases?

And why does that have anything to do with budgetting? I don't need to know how the Mexican Stock Market is doing in 10 years to decided to spend less money on defense spending.

Frazzled wrote:That was easy.

You reduced the debt to 56% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

I should go back and try this time.

Ah here we go while protecting Medicare and not raising taxes materially.

You reduced the debt to 47% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030.

Its a clearly biased test though.

I got it down to 57% by 2018 and I did it in a sane fashion by raising taxes materially, cutting the war effort substantially, and knocking around healthcare!

Wussy. If you can't get into the 40s you aint no man.

"Whats hunting us aint no man. We're all going to die"

Polonius wrote:Are you saying they're incapable of accurate predictions, or are you saying that their predictions tend to be the result of biases?

Both, in essence-- the biases often result in less accurate predictions.

Budgeting is supposed to be based on, in some way or other, economic theory. At least GOOD budgeting either, which mostly excludes DC I suppose.

Frazzled wrote:Wussy. If you can't get into the 40s you aint no man.

"Whats hunting us aint no man. We're all going to die"

Sorry, I spent several trillion dollars on that laser plane.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Wussy. If you can't get into the 40s you aint no man.

"Whats hunting us aint no man. We're all going to die"

Sorry, I spent several trillion dollars on that laser plane.

Al I want are sharks with freeking laser beams!

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Wussy. If you can't get into the 40s you aint no man.

"Whats hunting us aint no man. We're all going to die"

Sorry, I spent several trillion dollars on that laser plane.

Al I want are sharks with freeking laser beams!

Are they ill-tempered?

I'm going to mess with this after homework is done.

Monster Rain wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Wussy. If you can't get into the 40s you aint no man.

"Whats hunting us aint no man. We're all going to die"

Sorry, I spent several trillion dollars on that laser plane.

Al I want are sharks with freeking laser beams!

Are they ill-tempered?

Of course.

I blew it on gold statues of my butt in every city :(