Q-and-A Club > TAX-AND-SPEND GAME
 How Will the Election Change Our Taxes?
Introduction to the Tax-and-Spend Game
“Change” is the operative word in the presidential campaign this year. But what is supposed to change? Who is supposed to change? You or me? What values and priorities will create the change we say we want? And most of all, what effect will change have on taxes and the government programs those taxes are supposed to fund?
After listening to candidates call for change, hope, and unity, I am dusting off a Tax-and-Spend Game that I created a few years ago. Now there are more than 125 programs within eleven categories you can explore to decide what you want done with the taxes you pay, and the taxes the other guy pays.
If we can actually achieve the "change" we claim to want, who do we want to pay more taxes than they pay now? Who should pay less? Who should receive more services? Who should receive less? In other words, if change is the byword of the day, there will be a change in the collection of taxes and the distribution of same. You can take that to the bank. The question is, which services will be expanded and which will be reduced?
A VERY FEW (BUT IMPORTANT) STATISTICS
Now, before you run for cover in fear that the game will cause your eyes to glaze over and you’ll need to get out a calculator, let me assure you that I offer you no statistics except the following (but hold onto your hats!):
The proposed national budget for the next fiscal year is based on an estimated revenue of $2,662,000,000,000. That’s 2.662 trillion in federal taxes if the zeros are too hard for you to count.
Expenditures for the same period? $2,902,000,000,000. 2.902 trillion in expenses takes up less space.
If I’ve done my math correctly, that leaves a deficit of 239 billion!!
That doesn’t include Iraq and Afghanistan expenditures. And according to the National Priorities Project (see description below) the cost of Iraq alone is $275 million per day, or $4,100 per household.
NOR does it include state and local budgets, which our tax dollars also support.
WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS?
I can’t get my mind around figures that huge. Can you? One thing I do know is that the numbers represent our collective willingness to spend more than we take in. They remind me of the words of the philosophical classic comic strip character Pogo. We can paraphrase him by saying that “we have met the enemy“—that is, taxes—”and he is us“—that is, our reliance on government to fund and regulate a wealth of services that extend beyond our desire to pay for them.
If America is to truly change and become a country more united in values and principles than it is today, we will have to have a serious discussion (many discussions, in fact) about what we want to change and how. We will have to talk about those taxes we don’t want to pay and the services we want to continue using.
Unless we are willing to dig into the whole mess of taxes and the programs they fund, we will continue to succumb to thirty-second sound bites that make us feel comfortable by oversimplifying complex issues and obfuscating how unbalanced our government’s income and outgo has become.
HOW WOULD YOU BALANCE THE BUDGET?
It is a safe bet that we can achieve change most easily if we all take a closer look at the balanced-budget fiasco and the role we play in asking for more than we want our taxes to support. That means me. That means you.
So what would happen if YOU were given sole power to balance local, state and federal budgets while providing basic services, balancing the budget, and repaying the national debt? Do you think you could do that? You’d have to decide how spending should be allocated. You’d have to decide who should pay for what services. You’d have to decide what local, state, and national programs should be cut, reduced or eliminated.
That is what the Tax-and-Spend Game gives you a chance to do. It isn’t difficult, but it also isn’t as simple as saying “I will balance the budget.” No, you have to make some choices. Begin with asking yourself the Q-and-A Club general questions about taxes and spending below to stimulate your thinking. Then read the Rules of the Tax-and-Spend Game — where you can learn how to enter into a drawing for a new book — and begin your decisions about taxes with education, the first of eleven sets of questions for the Tax-and-Spend Game.
At the bottom of this page you will find some websites that can give you some understanding of the complexity of state and national budget decisions.
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If I want government programs to be decreased in order to reduce taxes, but realize their importance to the community, what can I do so those services can be provided by the private sector?