Wow! What a great Site! I wish the U S Congress knew this site was here! It looks like about a 40% across the board cut would do it. It is amazing to me how we could let ourselves get in to this mess. It is going to be very difficult to implement the reform needed to correct the problems as everyone is impacted and all these groups
Joe D - justjoe@nc.rr.com
Monday, January 18, 2010, 08:45 am
I see that some don't agree with the 20% spent on defense. Should the U.S. trust the rest of the world to do the right thing? How about giving us back the money we pay in SSI. Let me be in charge of my money, not the gov't. It's clear they cannot do it!
J. L. Miller
Friday, January 22, 2010, 08:19 pm
Four years of annual surpluses (1996-2000) when added up was not enough to pay off the interest we owe on the deficit which is why the Federal deficit continued to grow every year under Bubba. Check out the history of the federal deficit your self from the Treasury dept. When the Cold War ended that allowed the acceleration of the Internet from military control to commercialism that produced over 1/3 of the revenues from 1996-2000. It was Reagan and not Clinton and/or the Republican controlled congress that was responsible for that to happen. No programs from Truman to Carter where produced or excuted in any way shape or form in bringing down the Soviets. Just Ronnie baby according to Soviet and East German archives.
Mike Riley - mikeriley16re@htotmail.com - www.heritagefoundation.com
Monday, February 1, 2010, 12:47 am
This is fabulous!!!! I love my gov class...nott
Miranda
Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 10:46 am
I feel for my grand children!!! I do not have but one year of college and came up with a surplus. Big Government needs downsizing from the Oval office is where I would start, then the Department of Human Services is next, Judicial system and so on, so on, so on. Next would be giving our freedom back. The list just keeps growing. nadm
nadm
Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 04:38 pm
The graphs on the first page are informative but undestate the true picture and history. It would be better to take the graph back to 1946 if not 1929 when the federal government began the relatively huge amounts of money. Many large federal programs didn't exist or not at the level they do today prior to the 1930s, e.g., Social Security, federal disaster relief, a comparatively large standing army, etc. Where it all began to go down the dumpster was when Lyndon Johnson and Congress tried to start the Great Society while at the same time fighting a war.
Many either have not learned or if they don't appreciate that the USA was the only industrial power for a decade or more after World War II. We had the world market, hungre for goods, all to ourselves. What is amazing is that generally we have maintain our high standing ever since even while the Japan, the EU and now India and China have slowly risen from the ashes. Yet with extreme and continued deficit spending by Congress that all is changing and changing very fast.
There is an assumption that just spending money means there is some basis of wealth to support that spending. Anyone that has ever maxed out their credit cards no better.
Government can create economic activity but that is far from the creation of wealth. Government cannot create wealth only the private sector. Government can control the country's ability to create wealth or a least to create it efficiently. Government can tax wealth. Government can print money lowering the value of economic activity throughout the economy by the creation of wealth. The results of government reducing the efficiency of wealth creations can easily be seen the energy segment of our economy. In 1974 one could buy a car that got an honest fifty mpg, due to regulations we are just now again approaching that level. We had just become an net importer of petroleum and not because the USA had run out of oil and gas. Taxing takes money out of the market place where it would otherwise be used to produce additional wealth, create products, hire people, etc. Remember even the "evil" bankers on Wall Street are ultimately dependent on someone creating wealth. Printing money, which anyone that lived through the Carter and early Reagan years appreciates cause inflation. Inflation is not just a word from economic class. With inflation your pay is reduced in value. Most Americans today either did not live through a time of high inflation, interest rates and high taxes or they did but have forgotten the pain.
Still we can talk about history all we want but the borrowing, spending, government regulations (hidden taxes)is setting records each day. In a short two years government will spend as much as it did the previous thirty years. Interest rates will have to rise, not just for who are holding the country's "mortgage" but what you pay for a home loan, car loan, student loan etc. At the rate we are going the money printing presses will have to begin running faster and faster and very soon. Read world history and what has happened anytime there has been hyperinflation. Hyperinflation has more often than not come about when the public sector, government, has spent money at a faster rate that their country could create real wealth. Such government spending is almost guaranteed if the money is being spent on such things a loan repayment, high interest, and on counterproductive activities. Understand the economic situation in the World that led to WWII.
Edwin - edirby@embarqmail.com
Monday, February 8, 2010, 06:37 am
I was able to balance the budget by increasing the social security taxes and eliminating the payment of social security benefits. The budget explorer would be more helpful if it provided some feedback when such an impossible solution is attempted. Hopefully this website will give people a chance to see how difficult it actually is to reduce the deficit without making politically unpopular choices. Eliminating the "Welfare State" sounds great until you think about all the grandparents who depend on Social Security and Medicare. I'm sure the world would be a better place if all those old people got jobs at Walmart so they wouldn't need welfare, and if Walmart didn't have to pay any taxes I'm sure they'd use that extra money to provide health benefits and better pay to all their employees because that's the kind of progressive socially conscious people the Waltons have shown themselves to be.
Nathaniel Kelly
Thursday, February 18, 2010, 01:11 pm
Question, do the 50+ billion in earmarks show up in the federal budget, or are they expenditures in addition to the budget amounts?
James Mitchell - j-jhome@sbcglobal.net
Saturday, March 6, 2010, 01:42 pm
Sometime I think that the members of Congress actually feel they are the only ones who have the market cornered on brains. That is why they always have meetings behind closed doors. It's shameful to see how this great nation is being run to the ground. I don't know how I would balance the budget, but I would definately start with defense and in particular money spent on a homeland security ayatem that is an absolute joke.
Moses Manning - mmanning1@cougars.com
Friday, April 9, 2010, 05:19 am
Thank you for developing this site. It has helped me move my discussion with others from an emotional, highly politicized argument to a more rational consideration of where we are and where we need to go. When I ask others if they know where we spend our tax dollars they normally say no or at least are very uncertain. Most are astounded when they look at the numbers. When we discuss where we should spend our money (using your site) we find more to agree on than we thought. Rarely, however, do we find a satisfactory solution.
As retired adult educators my wife and I where thinking what a great non-partisan educational seminar could be developed around your web site. If you ever decide to go that direction let us know. We would love to contribute our ideas.
Bob Kihslinger - bobkihslinger@hotmail.com
Sunday, April 11, 2010, 09:45 am
Our government is spiraling down and eventually we all will die and things will set fire.... i look forward to my future
Donald Crump
Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 11:17 am
Yup. We are screwed. With few options to change it....We are one nation under a corporation as our Congressmen and Senators continue to stash their red envelope gifts into their brief cases with no shame or guilt. Never feel sorry when our representives kid(s) are in rehab as that is the only time they are forced to think about carrying the cross. Imagine 435 Congress members and 100 Senators leading 300 milllion Americans and making such a muck of it.
Alex E - aescobar@montgomerywilshire.com
Saturday, May 15, 2010, 03:17 pm
Can you give me more information?
Christian Orth - Christian.Orth @att.net
Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 05:17 am
Your web site unfortunately does not break the budget down far enough. For example the USIA is part of the executive branches budget. The USIA has 12 different agencies each with their own budget. There is alot of duplication. About half of the employees of this agency are foreign! The idea was to produce and broadcast propaganda to the former Soviet countries and counties thretened by communism. Where a large number of people in the Soviet block used to listen to VOA and Radio free europe, the listenerdhip has dropped over 50%. People in Russia, Poland etc. get their news from CNN today! These are obsolete agancies! Regan tried to get rid of them, but instead filled them full of the children of donors. Huge salaries and expense accounts are the norm.
Terry Flakus - flake342@msn.com
Monday, July 19, 2010, 11:48 pm
Is it still operational?
Budget section showing blank
Pete Fisher - pfisher@st.pauls.edu
Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 11:03 am
Great site for a beginner in economics, especially the down to earth laymans terms. Thanks.
Lynn Leyva - baqua48@aol.com
Saturday, October 2, 2010, 08:13 pm
very nice site - congrats
Perhpas you could could consider two changes to the home page http://www.kowaldesign.com/budget/index.html ; add presidential terms to the chart, and put the accumulated deficit in downward boxes for consistency
you are a lot better then the data rich academic nerd site (http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html ) which is another example that design does matter - there is probably a lot more data on that site, but it is so poorly organized as to be un intelligible
ezra abrams - ezracolbert@comcast.net
Thursday, October 28, 2010, 04:51 pm
You sir are a patriot. it's amazing that this small project can present the basics of the Federal Budget so effectively where OMB fails (on purpose). It's a great example of interactive data.
It is my belief that the entire American political system relies upon the Ignorance of the common people. If America took a few days to self educate themselves on the federal budget and process the entire political landscape of this country would be turned upside down.
Our system lives and breathes on the budgeting and appropriation of $$$, and the manipulation of laws which impact private sector $$$ generation. Elected officials are in charge of representing their groups, often the groups they represent are not immediately clear.
dcsnark - wellingtonlee@gmail.com
Friday, November 12, 2010, 11:47 am
How about an option to balancing the budget over a 10, 20 or 30 year term?
This would be more realistic than looking at it this way.
It makes it look too extreme or impossible to balance.
Angel Garcia - taino95@aol.com
Friday, November 12, 2010, 11:48 am
To answer another person's questions--earmarks do not add to a department's budget--it just directs that department to spend on the congressman's pet project instead of how the department administration feels it should be spent.
I would appreciate a similiar simulation but without the Social Security & Medicare figures skewing the numbers. Those programs have their own financing from our payroll taxes-and while Medicare is in worse trouble than Social Security--they have both been slush funds for the rest of the federal budget to dip their greedy fingers into for decades. The reason the Federal Reserve is having to buy so many bonds is because both Medicare/SS are actually almost balanced this year--which is a bad thing for the rest of the govt that is used to issuing "IOU's" to those programs instead of selling real bonds to real investors that would demand more interest than the pathetic rates we have now.
The concept that the federal govt can keep collecting FICA taxes and not payout any benefits as one person suggested is ludicrous and is unfortunately in our future if the TRUE federal budget (non-Medicare/SS) is not brought under control. Those numbers would truly frighten people though, and we will continue to ignore this reality as long as possible.
D Man - dsmk123@gmail.com
Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 09:31 am
FY 2000 - 236 Billion SURPLUS under Clinton
FY 2001 - 128 Billion SURPLUS under Clinton
FY 2002 - 158 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2003 - 378 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2004 - 413 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2005 - 318 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2006 - 248 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2007 - 161 Billion deficit under Bush with republican congress
FY 2008 - 459 Billion deficit under Bush with Dem congress
Source : CBO Historical Budget Data
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/historicaltables.pdf
Ex Republican - jda32118c@yahoo.com
Saturday, December 25, 2010, 10:03 pm