Fix Government Spending
June 20, 2005 @ 08:48 AM
There’s a great little website that lets you tinker with the federal budget and try to cut the deficit. It’s quite good. Anyway, I thought I’d do it and show you my results.
My basic strategy was to cut all federal spending by 10% across the board, and increase tax revenue by 10% across the board. So before you complain that your favorite program was cut 10%, keep in mind that that’s just the baseline. Anything I’m not too excited about funding will be cut DEEPER than 10%, and anything I strongly believe in will remain at today’s funding levels. On the whole, I tend to cut entitlement programs, but support infrastructure programs.
Feel free to yell at me about my fake budget in the comments section… being somewhat of a moderate’s budget, I expect to hear about it from both sides.
Alternatively, make your own damn budget.
This budget has a surplus of $5.03 billion.
My basic strategy was to cut all federal spending by 10% across the board, and increase tax revenue by 10% across the board. So before you complain that your favorite program was cut 10%, keep in mind that that’s just the baseline. Anything I’m not too excited about funding will be cut DEEPER than 10%, and anything I strongly believe in will remain at today’s funding levels. On the whole, I tend to cut entitlement programs, but support infrastructure programs.
Feel free to yell at me about my fake budget in the comments section… being somewhat of a moderate’s budget, I expect to hear about it from both sides.
Alternatively, make your own damn budget.
This budget has a surplus of $5.03 billion.
Spending ($2443.89 billion: cut $228.63 billion)
- $401.49 billion .... Military Spending
- Cut $44.61 bil. from base of $446.105 bil.(-10%)
- $89.48 billion ..... Iraq War and Afghanistan Operations
- Cut $22.36 bil. from base of $111.851 bil.(-20%)
- $115.48 billion .... Veterans & Retired Military Pensions and Services (No Change)
- $22.11 billion ..... International Affairs
- Cut $9.47 bil. from base of $31.590 bil.(-30%)
- $21.57 billion ..... General Science, Space, and Technology
- Cut $2.39 bil. from base of $23.967 bil.(-10%)
- $1.91 billion ...... Non-Defense Energy Spending
- Cut $0.2 bil. from base of $2.121 bil.(-10%)
- $28.05 billion ..... Natural Resources and Environment
- Cut $3.1 bil. from base of $31.163 bil.(-10%)
- $20.82 billion ..... Agriculture
- Cut $5.19 bil. from base of $26.020 bil.(-20%)
- $70.67 billion ..... Transportation (No Change)
- $17.19 billion ..... Community and Regional Development
- Cut $1.9 bil. from base of $19.097 bil.(-10%)
- $57.66 billion ..... Education
- Cut $6.4 bil. from base of $64.068 bil.(-10%)
- $47.81 billion ..... Training, Labor and Unemployment Programs (No Change)
- $227.99 billion .... Non-Medicare Health Spending
- Cut $25.32 bil. from base of $253.320 bil.(-10%)
- $311.17 billion .... Medicare
- Cut $34.57 bil. from base of $345.746 bil.(-10%)
- $64.75 billion ..... Civilian Retirement (Social Security excluded)
- Cut $7.18 bil. from base of $71.940 bil.(-10%)
- $144.74 billion .... Aid to Low-Income Families
- Cut $62.02 bil. from base of $206.773 bil.(-30%)
- $25.62 billion ..... General Family Support (No Change)
- $4.77 billion ...... Commerce and Housing Loan Programs
- Cut $2.04 bil. from base of $6.816 bil.(-30%)
- $544.82 billion .... Social Security (No Change)
- $43.1 billion ...... Administration of Justice (No Change)
- $15.98 billion ..... General Government Administration
- Cut $1.76 bil. from base of $17.754 bil.(-10%)
- $211.08 billion .... Net Interest (No Change)
- $-44.37 billion .... Undistributed Offsetting Receipts and Allowance (No Change)
Tax Expenditures ($897.43 billion: cut $177.39 billion)
- $147.3 billion ..... 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts
- Cut $147.29 bil. from base of $294.6 bil.(-50%)
- $60.36 billion ..... Corporate Tax Breaks (No Change)
- $86.71 billion ..... Personal Business and Investment Benefits (No Change)
- $168.47 billion .... Pension and Retirement Tax Benefits (No Change)
- $126.89 billion .... Health Insurance Tax Benefits
- Cut $14.09 bil. from base of $140.990 bil.(-10%)
- $163.71 billion .... Housing Tax Benefits (No Change)
- $143.99 billion .... Other Individual Deductions and Expenditures
- Cut $15.99 bil. from base of $159.993 bil.(-10%)