Stabilize the U.S. Debt: An Online Exercise in Hard Choices

YOUR CHALLENGE:Stabilize the U.S. Debt at 60% of GDP by 2018.

"Committee for a Responsible Federal Government"
To begin the simulation, click the “Next” button above. There are 8 categories where your choices will affect the debt. Negative numbers next to a choice indicate how much the debt will be reduced, positive numbers add to the debt. Use the “Next” and “Back” buttons to navigate to each section; do not use your browser’s navigation arrows. Click the “Done” button when finished making all the choices you want. The bar graph on the right will chart how your choices affect the debt-to-GDP ratio relative to the 60% goal.

For more information on any choice simply click the icon to the left of that choice.
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See our methodology for this simulator

You make decisions in 3 broad policy areas first:
1-Iraq and Afghanistan
2-2001/2003 tax cuts
3-Discretionary spending growth

Then you work with spending amounts in these 8 categories:
Budget Path
Defense
Domestic
Social Security
Healthcare
Other Spending
Revenues
Tax Expenditures

Each area has several detailed choices. It's not just one big overall cut and dried option to cut or expand an area.

http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/#

I made it by 2020.

Got it by 2018. About the only "nasty" thinhs needed for all but high earners were increasing SSI and Medicare ages, which makes sense based on longevity gain since their inception. Military cuts, closing tax loopholes and high earner sutaxes did the rst. I even managed to sneak in some additional help for college and a few other things.

To be honest the goal is not rigorous enough for reality, nor are there more creative choices on expanding progressive taxes and corporate tax rates etc.

However, it's better than a lot of budget simulations I've seen.