I balanced the Federal budget!

Cool sim to manage the Federal budget. (via Boing Boing)

Actually, I ended up with a 1.12 B$ surplus. My values:

- actually balance the budget.
- try to not renege on promises to people relative to their future. Therefore, I held Iraq, Veterans and Miliary Retirement, Medicare, and SS without cuts. (nb: I know this is incredibly subjective, but there you have it...)
- almost every other area of the budget had to take a cut.
- I tried to dither less with little lines items.

Spending ($2130.04 billion: cut $162.76 billion)

$319.34 billion .... Military Spending
Cut $79.83 bil. from base of $399.181 bil.(-20%)
$50 billion ........ Iraq War (No Change)
$98.43 billion ..... Veterans and Military Retirement (No Change)
$23.79 billion ..... International affairs (No Change)
$21.15 billion ..... General science, space, and technology
Cut $2.34 bil. from base of $23.500 bil.(-10%)
$0.8 billion ....... Non-Defense Energy Spending
Cut $0.08 bil. from base of $.887 bil.(-10%)
$27.36 billion ..... Natural resources and environment
Cut $3.03 bil. from base of $30.400 bil.(-10%)
$19.03 billion ..... Agriculture
Cut $2.1 bil. from base of $21.139 bil.(-10%)
$57.45 billion ..... Transportation
Cut $6.37 bil. from base of $63.828 bil.(-10%)
$12.25 billion ..... Community and regional development
Cut $1.36 bil. from base of $13.616 bil.(-10%)
$68.8 billion ...... Education, training, employment, and social services
Cut $17.19 bil. from base of $86.002 bil.(-20%)
$222.55 billion .... Non-Medicare Health Spending
Cut $24.72 bil. from base of $247.281 bil.(-10%)
$258.64 billion .... Medicare (No Change)
$93.17 billion ..... Non-SS Retirement & Unemployment Compensation
Cut $10.34 bil. from base of $103.521 bil.(-10%)
$164.25 billion .... Social Welfare Spending
Cut $18.24 bil. from base of $182.500 bil.(-10%)
$498.84 billion .... Social security (No Change)
$34.88 billion ..... Administration of justice
Cut $3.87 bil. from base of $38.756 bil.(-10%)
$18.17 billion ..... General government administration
Cut $2.01 bil. from base of $20.190 bil.(-10%)
$176.4 billion ..... Net interest (No Change)
$-42.92 billion .... Undistributed offsetting receipts
Increased $10.75 bil. from base of $-53.668 bil.(-20%)
$7.66 billion ...... Commerce Promotion
Cut $1.9 bil. from base of $9.575 bil.(-20%)

Tax Expenditures ($786.56 billion: cut $195.36 billion)

$51.5 billion ...... 2001 Tax Cut
Cut $51.49 bil. from base of $103 bil.(-50%)
$55 billion ........ 2003 Tax Cut
Cut $54.99 bil. from base of $110 bil.(-50%)
$34.45 billion ..... Corporate Tax Breaks
Cut $34.43 bil. from base of $68.89 bil.(-50%)
$122.95 billion .... Personal Business & Investment Benefits
Cut $13.65 bil. from base of $136.61 bil.(-10%)
$155.7 billion ..... Pension & Retirement Deductions (No Change)
$108.14 billion .... Employer-paid Health Insurance
Cut $12.01 bil. from base of $120.161 bil.(-10%)
$176 billion ....... Itemized Deductions
Cut $19.54 bil. from base of $195.55 bil.(-10%)
$82.82 billion ..... Other personal tax expenditures
Cut $9.19 bil. from base of $92.02 bil.(-10%)

Stuff I learned/was reminded of:
- you don't get much mileage of of cutting little area. In Federal budget management the big items are Military, Health, Medicare, and SS. The 'cutting' tax expenditures is also a good source of revenue.


Feel free to comment (nicely) on my budget. What I'd really like to see is your budget, either in my comments or on your weblog.