Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Solve the Deficit

...without leaving your chair. Absolutely awesome little game from NYTimes: you make the hard choices about which programs to cut or taxes to raise in order to solve the Federal deficits in 2015 and 2030.

This shows that solving the deficit is not as much hard as it is painful. It also highlights the magnitude of certain big programs - leaving Afghanistan and limiting Medicare and Social Security growth can account for 92% of the projected 2030 deficit. The biggest bopper on the tax side is to get rid of most deductions.

Check it out!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's the link to your solution?

turtle said...

It's neither hard nor painful!! What a great exercise to show how easy it is, how many reasonable ways there are to eliminate the deficit ... highlighting how selfish are our legislators and executive branch.

Macro Guy said...

I'm never sure anymore whether "turtle" is my dad or my sister...

Macro Guy said...

Here's one of my more aggressive solutions, which actually delivers a big surplus in 2030: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=gt9rf070

We need the surplus to pay down our national debt. That might seem like a frivolously idealistic goal, but low baseline debt is what allows the government to borrow aggressively in a war or economic crisis.