I didn't have a very productive writing day, but I did manage to solve the country's budget deficit problem:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=83t15ll3
My solution was 65% spending cuts and 35% tax increases. I cut unnecessary defense budget items, capped medicare growth and taxed people who could afford it. Heck, I even managed to get a half trillion dollar surplus by 2015 and a trillion and a half dollar surplus by 2030.
Your welcome, America.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Today I Balanced the Budget
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4 comments:
yeah, basic regression to the mean on the economy, stopping killing people, and keeping medical inflation to a vaguely reasonable level fixes all of our budget problems. Too bad we can't get that done. Fun calculator though.
Well, I don't necessarily agree that raising tax rates results in a growth of income. However, I do admire your desire to get most of the shortfull by spending cuts.
Dan, you and I should run the country. If we both agree on an issue, it must be right!
Robert,
we're well shy of the Laffer tipping point right now (which I agree exists, and Western Europe may be close to). Sure, taxes increases may have a contracting effect on the economy as a whole, since deficit spending is stimulative (which is why we need a bigger deficit, not a smaller one right now), but marginal tax increases increase revenue, and marginal tax decreases decrease revenue, as can be seen both after the Clinton and Bush 1 tax increases and the Bush 2 tax decreases (notice what happened to the deficit in both cases). Anyway, here's a link. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/the-laffer-test-somewhat-wonkish/
Dan, I wondered if you had thoughts on this: http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2010/11/14/mennonite-takeover/#comment-68101
I had not seen that discussion Sam. I'll have to go over there...
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