Balancing the Budget

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has created a useful budget simulation in which you get the opportunity to make the "hard choices" necessary to stabilize total U.S. debt at 60% of GDP by 2018. It's an interesting game. Here's how I did it:

Overall

• Reduce troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 60,000 by 2015
• Let Bush tax cuts expire, except that lower-rate cuts are only raised by half (this was forced; I originally tried it keeping all the tax cuts, but the numbers just didn't work out)

Defense & Diplomacy

• Cut foreign economic aid in half

Domestic Social & Economic Spending

• Cancel TARP
• Freeze unemployment benefits at 2009 levels
• Cut TANF
• Cut federal funding of K-12 education by 25%
• Eliminate New Markets Tax Credit
• Cut federal funding of school breakfast programs

Social Security

• Raise retirement age to 68
• Reduce benefits by 30% (over next 70 years)
• Use alternate measure of inflation for COLAs
• Reduce spousal benefits by 33%
• Increase Years Used to Calculate Benefits (from 35 to 40)
• Include all New State and Local Workers

Health Care

• Repeal ObamaCare but keep the Medicare/Medicaid Cuts
• Raise Medicare Premiums to 35% of Costs
• Enact Medical Malpractice Reform
• Increase Medicare Retirement Age to 67
• Reduce Medicaid Funding Matches to States

Other Spending

• Cut Federal Workforce by 5%
• Reduce Farm Subsidies
• Cut Earmarks in Half

Tax Expenditures

• Convert Mortgage Interest Deduction to a 20% Credit
• Eliminate Biofuels Subsidies
• Replace Employer Health Care Exclusion with a Flat Credit

In general, my philosophy is to cut the size of government where possible, and keep taxes low where possible. I wasn't able to cut taxes as much as I would have liked, but no doubt that's because of non-discretionary spending.