gov 16

Dometic Policy

Why can't the federal government balance its budget?

Watch this Youtube video:

United States Budget Dilemma.wmv

I'm not sure I completely agree with Mr. Mason's gloom-and-doom predictions, but his math is correct. The federal government now spends more just on entitlements and debt service than all the revenue it brings in each year. If we kept taxes the same and shut down the entire government, the military, everything, we still wouldn't have enough money to keep up with entitlement payments and interest.

This week's assignment should be pretty easy. All you have to do: balance the federal budget and explain how to address our $27 trillion national debt.

I'm serious. This is going to have to be done within the next decade, and its your tax money and government services at stake. You have just as much right to have input into these choices as anybody else.

Instead of writing an essay this week, go to the website of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and find their Budget Simulator: http://www.crfb.org/debtfixer/

Pretend you've been elected to Congress, and now serve on both the Appropriations (spending) and Ways and Means (tax) committees. Follow the directions and work through the simulation until you've found a way to stabilize the federal debt. You have a short-term goal of stabilizing the debt at no more than 90% of the economy by 2032 - still shockingly high, but you have to start somewhere, right? You then have a long-term goal of stabilizing the national debt at its historical average of about 60% of the economy by 2050.

It's not easy, but if you keep making hard choices (watch your progress on the right side of the screen), you'll eventually get to a screen that says "You fixed the debt." Use the "Print" feature to create a printer-friendly version of your results, then right-click and save that page as a PDF file.

I know I usually want your assignments in Word, but - this week only - submit the .pdf file as your assignment.

You do not need source citations for this assignment.

How To Submit Your Assignment

Please remember to follow the directions and use the "Print" feature to save a .pdf file of

your debt solution for your assignment this week.

When you've made all your choices and hit your two targets, you should see something

like this. Notice where you can print a summary of your solution:

Click that.

Now, at the top of the new page, you’ll see something like this:

Do that! When you right-click and select Print, the default in the little window will be

whatever printer you use when you print stuff. Use the little pull-down menu to change it

to “Save as PDF.” (Remember to change it back next time you want to actually print

something)

Additional Resources

How much of the debt do you owe? Forbes Magazine's Mike Patton explains: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2015/04/24/national-debt-tops-18-trillion-guess- how-much-you-owe/

Fortune says the deficit is growing faster than predicted: http://fortune.com/2019/04/10/the-deficit-is-growing-far-faster-than-predicted/

Forbes' John Mauldin says a wealth tax won't help:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2019/04/24/the-us-economy-is-reaching-a-d

ead-end/#502dd6e635a0