Balancing the federal budget

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Congress Activity
Balancing the Federal Budget

Watch and take detailed notes on Frontlines Fiscal Cliff video: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/cliffhanger/

As you watch, put yourself into the video the Fiscal Cliff before the whole agreement fell apart. You can choose which character you would like to pretend to be from the main characters in the video (you dont have to make their choices, you just have to be that leadership position and party). For your assignment, it is going to be up to you to help negotiate a budget agreement with the House leadership, Senate leadership and president.

Your goal is to balance the federal budget, which does not normally happen in Washington. Remember that you are elected, so think about how much support will that lose you in the next election if you make certain cuts! You should also consider what steps you would need to go through to get the budget passed (its a law after all), and the leadership you need on your side to win.

How to balance the budget: In this assignment, you need to find spending cuts and/or tax increases that will result in a savings of 1/2 trillion dollars or more to balance our approximated budget. To make the numbers easier, the savings or increased tax revenues of each item are noted in billions, and you need the ones you select to add up to 500. I am limiting this to only the items below, so that we do not have to deal with the complexities of the real budget.

Questions to Answer in your Post (use the video and your lessons and sources from your lessons on Congress, the president, the parties and elections in Unit 2, and economics from Unit 3 to back up your arguments. This includes any sources cited in your notes or lesson pages such as websites.) MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS. NO ADDITIONAL RESEARCH OUTSIDE OF CLASS MATERIALS AND THIS VIDEO ARE ALLOWED.
Who do you want to be, what is their role, and what party would that make you. (You must stay in the time of the video for purposes of the assignment!)
Write out the list of changes you would propose and then give an overview of your reasoning. Which economic philosophy from our economics lesson would this make you (Keynesian, supply side, laissez faire or something new) and why? Use terms from your economics lesson! Remember to think about who will be affected by the change. Be DETAILED but stay focused on relating this to the class lesson materials in a substantive and not generic way.
What obstacles do you think there would be to passage of your budget proposal in the House, Senate and president under the 2012 scenario discussed in the video? This is where you tell me about the Congressional process you\’ll need to go through in detail!!! (Show off using the Congress lesson!) How would you overcome those obstacles? Discuss the Congressional and lawmaking process in detail, as well as the political strategy involved, and make sure that your analysis is in depth, unique, and based on class materials.

Response to A Classmates Post: You will need to respond to one other students post substantively by providing new information and/or analysis using class materials. Remember to be polite and not generic.

Possible Spending Cuts (see economics lesson on budget!)

100 Cancel some weapons programs and decrease military spending overall by 5%
100 Reduce active military by 200,000 and limit our presence in Europe and Asia
100 Increase Medicare eligibility from to 70 years old
200 Raise Social Security age to 70
100 Eliminate Pell grant program that gives grants to low income college students
100 Cut food stamp program in half

Possible Revenue Increases (See the economics lesson info about taxes!)

100 Raise capital gains by 5% (see economics lesson for more on what this is!)
100 Millionaire tax of 5% added to all income over one million
200 Add Social Security taxes on income above the current cap (on higher income earners)
300 National sales tax of 5% (there is no current national sales tax, so this is in addition to state sales tax and on online purchases)
100 Eliminate tax deductions for student loans that lower taxes for people paying back student loans
200 Eliminate child tax credits that give money back to people with children even if they\’re not paying taxes in
100 Make everyone pay the same income tax rate (at 25%) no matter their income level
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