Think you can fix the budget? Go ahead.
Over at the New York Times, David Leonhardt, Bill Marsh, Shan Carter, Matthew Ericson, and Kevin Quealy have prepared a great online tool for analyzing federal budget options.
Your charge, if you choose to accept it, is to assemble a combination of spending cuts and tax increases that will adequately reduce the budget deficit balance the budget in 2030. To do so, you will need to find $1.355 trillion in budget adjustments.
I particularly like their decision to list cutting foreign aid in half ($17 billion) and eliminating earmarks ($14 billion) as the first two items. These are popular options in many circles, but they are small potatoes when it comes to the overall budget. Choose both options and you still have $1.324 billion to go.
Good luck.
* As Vivian Darkbloom notes in the first comment, I originally misread the goal for this exercise. The graphic refers to closing the budget gap, which I mistook as budget balance. David Leonhardt’s accompanying blog post makes clear that the goal is essentially getting down to a sustainable deficit level, which is an easier target.
Add/view comments on this post.
------------------------------
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above.
