Can you balance the budget?

[guest010313]

I found this great budget puzzle at NYTimes.com. My solution is linked below.

Please keep in mind ~ I answered every question based SOLELY on the little paragraph underneath. I am not an economist nor do I pretend to be. I think that my choices are fair and realistic within the parameters given.

I personally feel that dismantling a great deal of the Federal government and allowing the free market to regulate itself is the best solution but I was working with what I was given. Do some of my choices seem to disagree with that? Sure, but you work with what you have.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...oices=500tq4ln

[Guest081314]

Interesting quiz!

I agree with most of your choices, the exceptions being that I am more in favor of the Bowles-Simpson plan, and moving Social Security to age 70.

I also completely agree that the free market is ultimately the answer, much more so than government regulation.

Thanks for the link!

[john_galt]

I wonder if this will work http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...s-graphic.html

Nope, just got the clean version. My plan was balanced between tax increases and cuts. I raised the age of SS and left the military alone. They don't give you some choices.


Did this a few years ago with a group in Olathe sponsored by the Concorde Coalition.

[Philhelm]

Solved it. By 2030 we'd have a $600 billion surplus, without raising taxes (or rather, by choosing the least amount of taxation that the program allowed). Now, if it had offered other things to be placed on the chopping block, I could have done much better. I thought that the cuts offered in the quiz were a mere pittance, so that fact that our dear aristocrats can't fix the budget shows how corrupt and/or incompetent they are.