Budget Balancing Simulation

            Balancing the budget of the average person's checkbook is difficult. Balancing the budget of the United States of America is one of the hardest things imaginable. The people charged with the task must prevent the nation from being in debt while simultaneously keeping every program generously funded and without offending any groups. Politicians need to keep enough voters happy to be elected, so usually some area is under-funded in order to keep larger, more powerful groups with more workers happy. In addition, spending is rampant in all levels of society, which increases debt that steadily builds while very few serious attempts are made to pay it off. The National Debt Clock has run out of digits due to how massive the national debt is (Izzo, 1). But when given the opportunity to set the budget without having to worry about voters or large industrial groups and political organizations, the debt was instead turned into an eight billion dollar surplus. Although my partner and I disagreed occasionally about what to cut and how much to cut it by, we still ended up with several well-funded programs and the ability to give the American public a rebate check.

            Most of the excess budget was cut from the military, social security and the repeal of numerous tax breaks and tax cuts. Military spending accounts for more almost fifty percent of federal discretionary spending and accounted for forty-seven percent of the entire world's military spending in 2003. As most of the money is spent on unnecessary programs that do not increase the safety of our nation and can be eliminated or replaced with cheaper alternatives, this was the easiest part of the budget to cut. In addition, President Eisenhower warned that "we (America) must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex…" (Eisenhower, 1), which made it even easier to drastically cut spending, although my partner did not allow me to cut it nearly to the extent that I saw fit.

            Cutting some Social Security programs was a difficult but necessary measure. Seeing as the program will be bankrupt unless the government cuts or eliminates almost every other program when the baby boomers reach retirement age, and considering that the program was implemented during the Great Depression and not expected to last as long as it has, it has become necessary to cut it slightly in order to fund other programs or keep others going. Thus, $163 billion was cut from Social Security to increase aid to low-income families, education and increase environmental protection programs. However, the Social Security programs still make a large portion of the budget, and will not collapse because of this year's cuts.

            Cutting tax breaks for companies and tax cuts aimed to benefit wealthier Americans were the easiest to cut and saved the nation approximately $282 billion. "Trickle-down economics" has been largely proven to be ineffective at creating jobs or more wealth for the lower and middle-class, and therefore cutting programs that gave millions to major companies and tax breaks to the wealthy was not difficult to do and provided more funding to programs that needed it, such as education. In addition, it helped us to achieve a budget surplus, which can either be put away as emergency money or return to the American public in the form of rebates.

            In all, balancing the budget has proven to be one of the more cathartic projects I have ever worked on. Having the power to increase or decrease the funding of government programs while not having to cater to the whims of voters, lobbies or powerful industries allowed me to improve the country and end programs that are a waste of taxpayer money. Although a budget like this would never pass in the real world, despite the fact that it creates a budget-surplus, it is useful to know how one decision affects an entire program and how that in turn affects the entire nation.

Annotated Bibliography

"Table 27-1. Budget Authority by Function, Category and Program".

This was a very useful, albeit incredibly long chart of military discretionary spending, which accounts for most of the department's spending. The figures are enormous, which helped convince me to cut or reduce the programs that we not necessary.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Farewell Address." Presidential Speeches. 1961. 11 Nov. 2008.

This farewell speech by President Eisenhower warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex was incredibly useful and has become more and more relevant as time passes. The military is the best-funded program in the nation but the waste and needless spending prevents other programs from become successful. It helped inspire me to cut the military budget to fund other programs.

Izzo, Paul. "Sign of the Times: National Debt Clock Runs Out of Digits." The Wall Street Journal. 9 Oct 2008. 11 Nov 2008.

This brief article by Paul Izzo was useful because it gave me a source of a story I had heard on the national debt clock running out of space. There wasn't a lot to the story, but since there didn't really need to be, it worked out.

Hoyer, Steny. "We Need a Real Economic Plan, Not More Presidential Platitudes." Office of the Majority Leader. 2003. Office of Steny Hoyer. 10 Nov 2008. http://www.democraticleader.house.gov/media/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=231

This was a report by 2003 House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer that attacked "trickle-down economics" and President Bush for the economic situation at the time. Although it was not particularly neutral, it nevertheless contained numbers that could back up most of his claims.