Just Balance the Budget, Would Ya?
Decatur Metro | November 15, 2010UPDATE: Oh, BTW…once you balance the budget, the NY Times will supply you with a link if you’d like to share you solution with DM friends and foes alike.
Blues, Reds, Purples.
In a time of economic recession, people of all political colors become increasingly concerned with their governments’ budgets. Here on DM, the financial watchdogs have been out in force over the past year or so, consistently raising questions of local, state and federal spending when another expense is proposed.
And while Decatur currently boasts a balanced budget, the same can’t be said for our Federal government.
But what to do? You’re just one person without a think tank or army of economists.
Well, thanks to an ambitious effort by the New York Times, you can now balance the Federal budget in mere seconds, at home in your jammies!
Just CLICK HERE to begin your personal journey into the depths of our federal taxing and spending. Click off on plans to either cut spending or raise taxes with the goal of balancing the Fed’s budget in both the short-term (2015) and long-term (2030).
And if I know many of you, you’re also going to be even more interested in the research behind these numbers. You can read a summary of how amounts were calculated HERE.
Good luck. We are all counting on you!
Latest from Decaturish
I just read this item and agree with his approach:
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/11/15/balance-the-u-s-budget-it-did-it-in-under-a-minute/
He slams some entitlements, but also hacks away at DoD spending.
Remember the scene in “Dave,” where Kevin Kline and Charles Grodin go through the budget and start striking ridiculous spending out of it?
That’s exacly how I would do it.
The problem is that the truly ridiculous spending will only get you so far. I highly recommend this NYT exercise — it has its limits, but generally illustrates that the budget can’t be balanced without making some relatively tough choices, even though they’re not a draconian as some would have us believe.
I also tried to balance the budget by cutting zero spending and just accepting all of the steepest tax hikes, just for illustrative purposes. You can get there, but the cumulative effects of all those tax hikes would be pretty disruptive, to say the least. Indeed, the highest marginal rate would zoom to at least 45% if you say yes to the surtax on millionaires on top of letting all the Bush tax cuts expire. I personally think it is simply immoral to take almost 50 cents of every marginal dollar earned, on top of all other taxes. This is also to say nothing of the elimination of sacred cow deductions like home mortgage interest, which would absolutely destroy what is left of home prices, and the tax-exempt status of employer-provided health insurance.
I don’t think the City can currently claim a balanced budget. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when we speak of a balanced budget of the Federal government, we mean that expenditures are not greater than tax revenue. We do not count money that is borrowed. If the federal government spends more than it takes in in taxes, it borrows to cover the deficit.
WIth the 2007 bond and the bond approved a couple of months ago, the City is spending more than it gets in tax revenue. In fact, as a percentage of the annual operating budget, I wouldn’t be surprised if the City had borrowed more than the feds over the last three years.
I’m pretty sure that when we talk about a “balanced budget” we’re talking about being able to pay expenses, including any regular bond payments. I don’t think it applies to the TOTAL outstanding debt.