Balance the budget activity online (NYT). I did it... and so can you!

[Bucky]

I taxed the crap out of the rich and screwed retirees and defense contractors. And... wallah! I balanced the budget! Give it a try.


PS, no way in a thousand years would Washington actually do this. But the activity makes it clear that balancing the budget really is a matter of raising taxes, not gutting programs.

 

[NobodyHere]

1. What they really need

Is a simulation where you have to push bills through congress and still win re-election.

[billlll]

2. "THE BUDGET GAME" by some prof is a lot better No limit on tx hikes IIRC

NYT boxes u in to 5%. Incredible!

Ike-era ( '48 to '68 spans truman thru LBJ ) the top rate was

91%

...Bill Maher keeps reminding us.

Then we had good GDP, good Tax Revenue, good job growth ( 7 times the Bush era ), hi wages, a middle class,

FREE college in california, wives did not have to work, no homeless, built the Interstates, did Moonshots, fully funded Food Stamps, had a War On Poverty, unemployment hit record peacetime low, strong unions, prosperity.
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Bucky I like your final comment.
You have got the core of the matter analyzed. Good job. Wish all our voters were as perceptive.
The Game is linked at a DU post from about five days ago. Or try Google.

[Lasher]

4. Are you talking about the Nationa Budget Simulation game?

National budget simulation game here.

Or is there another one?

[billlll]

5. RW also... but tks for the link...it was the one I recalled but

Wn I studied it
It only ends Bush cuts

No Ike era

Total RW rubbish

[billlll]

6. great DU thread on top taxes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9378210

[Bucky]

8. There's a lot of reasons why the US could pull off the Big Labor/High Taxes/High Growth of the 50s

One of the main reasons was that there just wasn't that much competition in the world to US industrial dominance. Europe & Japan were still recovering from the utter obliteration of their industrial bases from WW2 until the mid 50s. Capital for development of new industries had few places to go to outside the US. When the boards of directors of corporate America started getting options in the 60s and 70s, they started moving jobs overseas.

There's also the problem of a lack of good citizenship among corporate "persons." That's an equally big problem. The best example is the fact that they don't make chocolate in Hershey, Pennsylvania anymore, the bastards.

[the redcoat]

3. Do they have a Republican simulator?

It would be easy to make. You just put a proposed bill at the top, and at the bottom there is only one button labeled "No."

[Bucky]

7. They have a Republican stimulator

It's the "cut social programs" option on the budget simulator program. I'm sure it's jizzing up keyboards all over the red states.