Balancing the Budget Free Essays

American Government Balance the Budget When it came to the budget simulator I went in there with a general idea of what I wanted to do, and the results were surprising. I was able to cut the deficit by $256 billion leaving a deficit of only $144 billion. I was not able to completely balance the budget which is disappointing but I made a significant difference. We will write a custom essay sample on Balancing the Budget or any similar topic only for you Order Now It was very difficult to make a balanced budget which I felt was fair but I’m sure many people would feel my cuts and increases were unfair or unwarranted. My biggest area for budget cuts was that of military spending, although it still makes up a large portion of the budget. I cut $208 billion from the military spending mainly because if we were to pull out from the war it would largely lower our deficit. I left the spending for military personnel unchanged because I do not deny that the military is necessary, I do however, doubt that we need all the research at the time simply because the war being fought was no relevant to us and we shouldn’t have been involved. Which brings me to the $80 billion cut from the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. I cut $105 billion from our military operations there and severely debated eliminating it completely, but we do need funding in order to bring our troops home. I eliminated our reconstruction aid there simply because with our country in such a huge problem area we need to focus on fixing our country first. On the topic of military personnel I chose to actually increase the spending towards military retirement simply because they have done a lot for our country and we need to show them support for all they have done. In retrospect I nearly eliminated the budget for foreign affairs, due to the fact that we have our own problems to fix. I completely eliminated the international development and humanitarian assistance, and international military aid budgets. My reasoning behind this is that our development is hurt in terms of economy and yes it is bad that the other countries aren’t as privileged as us but when more money is going into their development than fixing our country it is a serious problem. I won’t go into detail about every field but the last field I want to outline my reasoning behind for cutting spending in is the tax breaks for large corporations and the benefits for the richest 20% of the taxpayers. My main reason for doing this is because we need to stop placating the â€Å"rich† in our country and stop giving them so many ways to continually make obscene amounts of money which many of them will spend on frivolous things and very few give to charity. Giving the rich many tax write- offs and benefits did nothing but hurt this country. This is why I actually increased the benefits given to the bottom 60% of taxpayers by 20%. I cut all corporate tax breaks by 20% simply because the corporations are just as much at fault as the rich for hoarding the money and not returning their wealth. Moving on to the areas where I did actually increase the budget one of the bigger increases and also one of the most important was in the education department; Increasing elementary, secondary, and vocational education budget by 50% and higher education by 20%. The education department has taken severe budget cuts and it is having an adverse effect on our students who will one day bring out a leader to run this country. I would rather not elect a poorly educated person as president thus our system needs as much budget as can be spared. Another area which received a large amount of an increase was Medicare and Non-Medicare health benefits because I personally know how much trouble this industry is in. Having a pre-existing condition and a severe one at that I know how difficult it is to get health insurance and the aid which comes with it can be less than stellar. Hopefully this increase would help promote better health in the citizens of the country. Playing off the medical benefits I also increased the aid to low income families because they are a large backbone to the society. With how the economy is you have families working three jobs and still struggling to make ends meet. This is very unhealthy and actually leads to more cost needed for medical benefits because when people get sick they have to go to the hospital. It was my hope that increasing both budgets would actually balance ut. The final increase I wish to cover is also slightly more of a controversial one and it may not be a modest increase but it is still important. I increased the border security and immigration budget by 50% in hopes that it would help lower the rate of illegal immigrants coming into the country and not becoming citizens. While at first it may be viewed as a heartless thought the truth is that while we allow the immigrants who come to the country and donâ€⠄¢t get citizenship to stay we increase our own expenses. By not being citizens they themselves do not actually pay federal taxes, especially if they work under the table. However, despite not being citizens they are still eligible for our low income aid, and medical benefit programs and this is actually taking away from the citizens and taxpayers who need it. There is also the unspoken fact that without a large amount of illegal immigrants who don’t speak English we could actually cut the spending for production of many products in Spanish and other languages since those who require them wouldn’t be living in the country. While balancing the budget it occurred to me why congress would have so many problems balancing the actual budget; it is difficult to keep everyone happy while maintaining a balanced budget. My cuts were largely from the foreign affairs, the rich and corporate America. The problem is those areas in this current day and age hold a lot of influence and it runs the risk of making a whole lot of people very angry. Congress has to try its’ hardest to create a balanced budget while remaining as politically correct as it possibly can. In short balancing this budget wasn’t as hard on me as it could have been simply because I have thought about this exact topic for a long time. While my budget may not be the most politically correct budget and it may not be completely balanced it did get results, and very significant ones at that. There were probably areas which I could have not increased the budget for or areas which could have been cut a little less but I feel strongly about my decisions and I would stand by them if ever they were questioned. How to cite Balancing the Budget, Papers Balancing the Budget Free Essays When it comes to the balancing of the budget, there are two words that can be used: good luck. In reality, the budget of the United States has been balanced at very few times in history and there are a number of reasons for that. In fact, to completely list all the reason throughout history would be next to impossible so it is best to examine the current budget based on the recent history associated with it. We will write a custom essay sample on Balancing the Budget or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the 1990’s, the deficit of the budget had grown to enormous levels. Under President Bush 41 the deficit had become significant and this was a major factor in his re-election loss. President Clinton did not effectively address the deficit properly and his huge tax increase combined with a potentially enormously expensive health care bill led to his democratic congress losing the mid-term election. This later led to major budget showdowns between the White House and the Congress and this led to numerous vetoes and government shutdowns. Shockingly, out of this chaos the budget not only ended up balanced, but a surplus emerged! This surplus, however, was to be short lived due to the unpredictable nature of the roles that will be required of government. Part of the problem with budget reforms centers on the fact that there are a great number of situations that make predicting spending impossible. For example, no one expected to be attacked on 9/11 and this set the wheels in motion for two wars in the Middle East. Of course, the wars are not â€Å"free† and this means that there will be significant costs associated with the wars. Now, this leads to the problem that simply because there are war actions occurring internationally that does not mean that domestic spending must be stopped. Yes, there will be a certain amount of cuts here and there, but the baseline costs of the Balancing the Budget Page 2 function of the government will also play a huge role in domestic spending as well. As such, the ability to bring a budget under control can be a somewhat difficult issue. Of course, there is also the very contentious issue of earmarks and pet projects. Sadly, a huge part of our government revolves around purchasing votes and that means enormous spending on seemingly illogical and unnecessary programs. This has been a major bone of contention to the American people, but politicians generally had the ability to hide it better in the past hiding pork within the pages of unrelated bills. Politicians, however, are learning the hard way that in the world of the internet and 24 hour cable news channels hiding such items is not as easy as it used to be! However, it is doubtful that earmarks and pork barrel spending will ever stop anytime soon. When it comes to providing logical solutions to balancing the budget while maintaining defense spending and domestic programs the answer is simple: revenue. How to acquire revenue is another matter. Some suggest tax cuts and others suggest tax increases†¦and both often do so out of ideological reasons and not out of clear examination of the goals and the ways to achieve the goals. So, ultimately, the answer still remains in increasing revenue to the federal government and there are a number of ways to attempt this, but only by putting a plan into action can one see whether it does or does not work. So, it is impossible to make a statement of how to fix the budget without drawing up a solid plan and then testing it in action. Bibliography Bierbaur, Charles. â€Å"Gingrich Optimistic about Balancing the Budget. † 8 February 1996 Retrieved 12 November 2007 from http://www. cnn. com/US/9602/budget/02- 08/index. html Madison, J. , Hamilton, A. , and Jay, J. (Date Unknown) THE FEDERALIST PAPERS. Retrieved 4 September 2007 from http://patriotpost. us/fedpapers/fedpapers. html Scheikart, Larry. A PATRIOT’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. New York: Penguin, 2007. Zinn, Howard. A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. New York: Harper’s, 2007. How to cite Balancing the Budget, Papers