The hard part is getting my plan through Congress

[gridlore]

Another fix the deficit tool. I made my fixes through a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts. Mostly, I allow Bush tax cuts on the top brackets to expire, add a national sales tax and add a "millionaires tax" above the highest current bracket. I gut the defense budget.

Playing with this thing shows one clear fact: you simply cannot solve the deficit with spending cuts alone.

Comments

[kengr]

Playing with this thing shows one clear fact: you simply cannot solve the deficit with spending cuts alone.

This is news? The plain fact is that the money *has* to come from somewhere, and the politicians aren't willing to say that plainly, because that will hurt their re-election chances.

[seawasp]

Sure you can.

You'll just lose a lot. If you cut spending to zero, you have no deficit. You also have no government services, but omelettes, eggs, you know how that is.

[seawasp]

I fiddled around with it and many of our choices were the same. I pushed a couple other taxes and gave the military back some stuff -- as I work for an R&D firm that makes a large percentage of its R&D money from the military, I can't pretend to back any plan that's going to cut my own throat. But in the end I think I actually ended up more in the black than you. So ... getting it passed would probably be harder.

Me, I wanted more options. Like deleting all pay for politicians! Serving as a senator or whatever should be an honor, not a paid job!

[claidheamhmor]

OK, can you get the politicians to read that article and play with the tool too?