The Glade 4.0

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=zw1t500j

My solution above. To get to a reset version, just eliminate the ? and everything following from the URL. click here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html --Stathol

I solved it with only one tax "increase", namely closing tax loopholes and reducing rates, but less than the Bowles Simpson plan.

This plan gives me $23 billion a year starting in 2015 to begin reducing the debt, and all without any cuts to the military (I don't consider reducing troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan a cut to the military even though its a cut in military spending. The cuts I'd have preferred weren't really available as a choice.)

I might have cut the troop levels in Europe and Asia to meet the goal if I'd had to, but.. I didn't, and if I were going to do that I wouldn't put the savings from that towards the deficit anyhow unles there were no other way to eliminate it. I'd put that spending towards a change to a more strategic force, just directing war spending to the deficit, and keep military spending on activities other than the current two wars at the same level.

edit: thnks Stah, should have thought of that myself.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The WSJ isn't usually as biased as that test is ...

I unchecked everything and went for the most aggressive military cuts ...

And it said I solved the deficit.

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Yeah its a bit jacked up, but I thought it would be interesting to play with. Wasn't there another one we played with a while back?

I could only get to 191 billion/349 billion with all military cuts and nothing else. How did you do that?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is what I did to "solve" it:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... s=zz1tk010

But if I had my choice I'd just pick the following which would be short about 24 billion in 2015 but I'm at 1,361 Billion by 2030 which is over the mark.

Cut foreign aid in half
Eliminate earmarks
Cut pay of civilian federal workers by 5 percent
Reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent
Cut 250,000 government contractors
Other cuts to the federal government
Cut aid to states by 5 percent
Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending
Reduce military to pre-Iraq War size and further reduce troops in Asia and Europe
Reduce the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 60,000 by 2015
Enact medical malpractice reform
Increase the Medicare eligibility age to 68
Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013
Raise the Social Security retirement age to 68
Use an alternate measure for inflation * Not sure about this one, sounds kinda like a stealth tax.
Eliminate loopholes, reduce rates (Bowles-Simpson plan)


Done. 396 billion of the 418 billion shortfall in 2015 and 1,361 savings by 2030, which is 6 billion more than I needed.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Increase SS eligibility to 70, Dash, and reap even more surplus by 2030. Get rid of the alternate measure of inflation -- the CPI already underestimates inflation by a frightening margin. (that said, if you want to nerf SS payouts, be my guest; but doing so by monkeying with inflation numbers is shady and has broader reach on economic pontificating)

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It kinda sucks working within the constraints of this chart, but suppose they cant account for everything.

If I had my choice I'd love to see some kind of partial, opt in privatization of SS. I dont like the thought of saying "give me your money, and you cant have it til 65. No 68. No 70."

The inflation thing I admit ignorance.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Putting space and nuclear deterrent in the same category is rather shady; that was one of my biggest beefs with the game. The two are sort of related, but they're hardly the same budget item.

I also notice that they left Gate's overhead cuts out of the defense cuts options, as well as cuts to military contractors, unless they lumped those into general government contractor cuts.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's more like "Give me your money and we'll give it to someone else. Then maybe when you turn 70, you'll have a chance at taking someone else's money."

I was really annoyed they lumped space exploration in with nuclear arms reduction.

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Technically they didn't. They lumped in space-based missile defense, but that's intertwined with space explortion since you need some way to launch it, Constellation is cancelled, and they don't mention space anywhere else that I noticed. It's a cute way to dodge the issue that Obama managed to spend more on NASA while weakening the space program.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Classic leftism -- spend more for less through government!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Where are the options to eliminate entire departments?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'll bite. What would you cut entirely?

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The IRS, I'm sure.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Department of Energy. Department of Homeland Security. Department of Education. Combine the FBI and CIA into one department or move the CIA into MI. IRS is another you could get down to virtually no people if you had a consumption tax or a flat tax system as Kaffis said. That'd be for starters. I know I'm not Elmo, but that's a start for me.

I wouldn't ever allow foriegn intelligence and law enforcement to be the same department. What I'd do in that regard is eliminate BATF and DEA and roll the personnel into the FBI, Marshalls, Border Patrol and Secret Service, and roll the CIA, DIA and NSA into one agency.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Doesn't the DOE(nergy) hold the keys to the nukes?

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I'd be okay with DE's plan.

And maybe so Hopwin, but other departments could handle the responsibilities equally well. You don't need 75% of the agencies (maybe more) that we currently have. Responsibilities could be rolled into smaller, more efficient departments. And many of the responsibilities should be given back to the states. Of course, I never imagine this happening in my lifetime.

This is so easy. I solve the deficit long before i get to the taxes section, and long before i finish my cuts. And I don't end up objecting to any of them!

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I am fine with all of your picks except Energy. The more I think about it (besides controlling nuclear power and fissile materials) the more problems I have with it. I think back to the blackout that covered the Northeastern US a few years back. Power lines cross multiple state lines and considering what a cluster-eff the Great Lakes States have made out of managing the lake system I think we need oversight there rather than trusting states to create interstate departments to manage them.

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DoE technically owns the nuclear warheads, but not the missiles or planes that carry them. There's really no reason it needs to be that way, but even if you wanted it to remain as a check against some part of the DoD attempting to take over the rest of the country with some of the nukes (which is tinfoil-hat-hall-of-fame-worthy) you could trim the DoE back to just the portion of the agency responsible for nukes and get rid of everything else. Personally I'd still want them to monitor and regulate nuclear power plants because we just can't take chances with that ****. Same thing with the power grid; we lose the power grid and we essentially lose the country. That's why EMP is a threat, but really it doesn't matter if we lose it to EMP or to power companies **** it all up. Lose power for too long and the ability to recover starts to deteriorate.

However, I'd trim the EPA back considerably, majorly neuter its enforcement power and put it under the DoE just to get all that sort of **** in one place. Things like the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services would have to go. I'd look at cutting Transportation way back and possibly combining it with Energy. Interior and Homeland Security would probably become one department.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In your example Hopwin, I'd combine those functions into the Department of Interior and Defense, which absolutely should exist. Defending the nation's power supplies is a function of our military and infrastructure should be handled by Interior. Transportation should be rolled into Interior as well and limited greatly. The EPA, FDA, and other regulatory agencies should be cut back a lot. Labor should be eliminated and the few issues it deals with could be handled by other agencies. HHS should be eliminated and important health functions should be rolled into a new agency that would include NASA, such as a Department of Science and Public Health. It could even be combined with other departments. This would eliminate many government jobs along the way.

That's an interesting approach. I could go for that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I just checked anything over 100 billion and saved the world pretty quick.

I kid. Went through pretty quickly and ended up with 22% from tax, 78% from cuts.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... s=s753800j

Eliminated:
DEA, IRS, BATFE, DO Education, DHS, NASA, EPA to start

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville