Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ New York Times Budget Puzzle

Stephen Downes

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The New York Times yesterday launched Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget, an online budget simulator that challenges participants to balance the US federal budget. It's similar to something I've proposed over the years. Here's my solution to the deficit (consisting mostly of ending the wars in Asia and restoring taxation to Clinton-era levels - I would cut back on the nuclear program too, but the simulator lumps it in with space expenditures, which I wouldn't touch (except, maybe, to increase them). Here's a bunch more solutions. The Times also sets up a debate room regarding different ways to reduce the deficit. What don't I like about this? Well, it reduces the complexities of national finances to a dozen or so one-line solutions. And it is focused on a single result - reducing the deficit - without describing the impact on other metrics (like, say, number of people starving).

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 04:40 a.m.

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