U.S. GOVERNMENT & POLITICS, SPRING 2011

PUBLIC POLICY, DAY THREE: AN EXERCISE IN BUDGETING

Assignment for Friday, May 13 class

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (a bipartisan organization) has posted a budget simulation on its website: “Stabilize the Debt: An Online Exercise in Hard Choices.”

Your task is to click on this link and do the simulation – can you stabilize the U.S. debt at 60% of GDP by the year 2018, as recommended recently by several bipartisan budget reform organizations?

The simulation is designed to give you policy choices – to set priorities for the federal government – and then to see the impact of your choices on the overall debt situation (doing so will also reduce the yearly federal budget deficit, although the target here is the size of the federal debt).

The point of doing this is to 1) make some choices of your own about government policies in the future – you will get a broad range of choices including ones about the future of Social Security, national defense, and taxes, 2) see what difference your choices make for the long-term financial health of the U.S. federal government, and 3) learn something about public policy by putting yourself in the shoes of public policy makers – in particular, the President and all members of Congress, who are considering (and making) these choices in real life.

STEPS:

1. Go to the website (http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/) and do the simulation. Go through each section (there are several) and make your choices. Note that clicking on any specific choice will explain what that choice is all about, in addition to giving you the ‘price tag’ for each choice. You will also see the running tally of the effects of your choices on the debt, on the righthand side of the screen. I would suggest not worrying as much about the running tally up front – make the choices you think are reasonable and proper, and then at the end see what it adds up to.

2. At the end of the simulation, you are given an option – lower right, under “SPREAD THE WORD” – to “View or Save PDF.” Click on “View or Save PDF” and you will get a 5-page PDF document. PRINT this document and bring to class on Friday; we will discuss choices and consequences in class.

3. OPTIONAL: In addition to bringing in your PDF from the simulation Friday, write a one-page (double spaced) paper that discusses the choices you made, the overall outcome of your choices, and what you learned about the federal budget and policy making from this exercise. Anyone who completes this optional aspect of the assignment will receive some extra credit in the form of additional points toward the attendance/participation part of your course grade.

NOTE: We will begin discussion of OSY chapter 14 on Friday as well; this discussion will continue through Monday, May 16, which still includes completion and discussion of News Summary #5. A separate handout about OSY chapter 14 will be distributed Friday.