Prior to completing the sim ulation, I was in favor of trying to reduce the overall deficit, To achieve this, I was looking to cut programs and projects that did not effectively use the money allotted to them. Programs that would result in more positives for the citizens if cut, were removed to help reduce the deficit. I do not agree with the idea of raising taxes as a way to reduce the deficit, especially if there are inefficient programs using those tax dollars. The consequence of favoring cuts, is that cutting programs can affect certain groups of people who have come to depend on the program for services or money. On the first run through the simulation, I chose only a couple of programs that I felt were ineffective at using the funds they were allotted.
To start, I chose to cut subsidies to railways and funding for alternative energy. Next was cutting subsidies to farmers and lowering the size of the government workforce cutting subsidies from the affordable care act, also helped reduce the size of the deficit. Cutting some programs from social security helped lower the deficit I chose to reform taxes to only three brackets, but did not raise taxes or cut any other tax-related credits. I finally chose to cut subsidies on the oil and gas industry as a way to increase efficiency in drilling and exploration. These cuts helped reduce the deficit by $557 billion but still has a total loss of $7 trillion over the next ten years. The second time through the simulation, I decided that I needed to decrease the deficit even more through a couple of different cuts I chose to use the same cuts in the first time, but added some new ones that reduced the deficit greatly.
This time I chose to freeze discretionary spending, resulting in a $929 billion dollar decrease another change was to replace some military member jobs with civilians, to help reduce the amount spent by the government. The two changes resulted in a decrease in the deficit by $1.65 trillion. Even with these larger cuts, there still was a $5.95 trillion deficit in the coming decade. By doing this simulation I was able to get a better sense as to what the members of the House and Senate have to think about when making and approving the budget. I now realize that there are many programs that take a large amount of money to run but might not spend the money in an efficient or viable way.
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It was also very hard to cut some programs knowing that some people would be negatively affected due to these cuts. The one cut I had to think about the most, was replacing some military jobs with civilians. I really support our military men and women, but I feel that by utilizing civilians the government can help employ others at a fraction of the cost. Overall, this simulation helped teach me what each member of Congress needs to think about when trying to determine and debate the federal budget I like the idea that a proposed budget must go through both a House and Senate appropriations committee, but do not really agree with having smaller subcommittees. I think that instead of sending the proposal to even smaller appropriations committees, the main committee should just mark up the bill.
This would decrease the amount of time necessary to get a proposed bill amended, and streamline the process of interviewing only the relevant federal agencies. This is the only thing that I would change to the federal budget as all the other steps are necessary to pass the budget, I really did enjoy completing this simulation, because it gave me more of an idea of how the president and congress complete the federal budget I do wish that the simulation could have given more programs to add or cut, but overall it was very realistic. By completing this projectl have become more informed on how the budgeting process works, and how the budget affects the various functions of government.
