NY Times lets you fix the US budget. And it's quite easy. My solution is here, you can try for yourself here.
My solution was mainly to cut spending on subsidies, the army (reduce troop numbers abroad, there's no need for thousands of US troops in Europe anyway), but stay in Afghanistan, and to raise taxes, especially on the richest 2% (I don't understand why that's such a big issue with you people, they're such a small minority, they're the first people I'd screw).

hehe...the rich people are the people that give the largest political contributions (that and the corporations). The person that gets the most political contributions wins the election. The person that screws the people that gave him the money that got him into office won't be getting those contributions next time around.

Unfortunately this isn't a true democracy. If it were, I don't think Congress would be voting themselves raises quite so often.

I tried to turn the US into a socialist utopia

I raised taxes for the highest incomes on every opportunity (or stopped tax cuts for them), downsized the military in almost every way possible (it's already many times bigger and more expensive than the 2nd and 3rd biggest armies in the world) but kept a 60.000 man presence in the Middle East, taxed banks and installed a carbon tax. I also raised estate taxes and cut government contractors.

Otoh I didn't touch overall tax rates, didn't introduce a VAT, didn't raise retirement age eligibility, didn't cut subsidies, didn't its growth. The idea was to make health care, government and non-high income families or individuals more 'empowered'.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... s=8myj46qv

Funnily enough, even though my taxes / spending cuts difference is about the same as Arathorn's (70/30 for me, 68/32 for him), his policy is pretty different from mine. He goes to town on the government to a large extent and, while he focuses on the wealthy wrt taxes, also introduces a VAT tax. He leaves the army alone, too.

Question for Arathorn: why do you cut so heavily in the government and leave the contractors alone? I mean, contractors are woefully inefficient at government level and getting contracts is often (especially in the US) more a result of good lobbying work than based on any sort of merit or financial responsibilty. Under the Bush era, positively enormous contracts were awarded to companies that had direct ties to top goverment officials, for example. Did you know that Rumsfeld wasn't even allowed to be part of many meetings relating to large government contracts himself, simply because he refused to give up his shares in certain defense contractors upon taking post as Secretary? (normally it's a requirement that you give up any assets that conflict with your position)

Also, you pay like this Arathorn

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/

It's a bit pricey for what it is, but it's a pretty interesting game!

I seem to have mixed up the government contractors and civil servants thing. They should've been flipped., or perhaps I could have them both. The problem is that this issue is so local that I simply don't have enough knowledge to make a good judgement. There are too many people involved doing too many different jobs.
But I do cut the military a lot, just not in Afghanistan, not the navy or air force (that one's not sacred for me, so I could've ticked it too) and not in personnel benefits.
Adding VAT seems sensible to me. This raises the cost of purchases for Americans, so they'll buy less shit and get into less debt. Off course people buying shit is good for the economy on the short term, but the debt issue in the US is huge. Also, this prevents me from raising taxes in other areas, so the people would have felt the taxes anyway.

That game looks cool, I'm downloading the demo. I just hope it's not to US centred. But being a bit of a politics nerd, I'll probably enjoy it.

No, it's fairly non-denominational when it comes to political systems. In fact I'd say it leans more towards European systems than the US. Hope you enjoy it. There are some sweet challenges in the full game, like trying to lead (and get reelected) in a country where just about everything is shit: low incomes, bad health care, no export, no military, lots of problems with violence etc.

@ VAT: good point. I'm just not sure higher prices would stop many people from getting into debt - I think a large part of any population is still retarded and will continue to charge it to their credit cards (and then drown in debt).

Seems like I have to buy the full game... Freedonia (liberal and atheist) is not in the demo.

Haha, if I had to do the same thing and choose a country I was familiar with I'd probably end up with Zambeezia.

Really? I would have thought Malaganga (Debt ridden state where voting is compulsory) describes Belgium best.
Too bad there's no Netherlands-like country: deeply divided but mostly conservative and falling apart economically. I also don't think there's any coalition government scenario, that would bring some nice possibilities and challenges.
Anyway, I completed the demo and I'm hooked, so I've just bought the full game.

Cool! I wonder how you'll manage in some of the disaster states.

Good point @ Malaganga being more like Belgium.

Holland is strange and hard to 'get'. On the one hand it's ultraliberal in its legislation, on the other it's got an outspoken part of the population that is very conservative (a party like the Christenunie is unimaginable in Belgium) and a definite right-wing aspect.

I worked together with a lot of Dutch people earlier in my career, and their personal attitudes are a strange mix of 'anything goes!' and a sort of bourgouis prudity - on many levels. Of course, 'conservative' is probably relative compared to, say, the American South.

Ultraliberal? They even banned magic mushrooms some years ago! Now they're even planning to close coffeeshops (where you get weed, not coffee) to foreigners. And if you think the Christenunie is bad, take a quick look at the SGP!

lol @ being against women's voting rights and still getting 2-3%.

And yeah, true, maybe it's not that liberal anymore...but compared to most countries, it still is ultraliberal!

Hey Arathorn, you 'fix' Freedonia yet?

Yeah twice. Turned it into a socialist paradise twice too. This game is biased towards commies.
Anyway, I'll be having some time in January, so perhaps I'll create a realistic Netherlands then. This game is very modable, not only can you add countries, but also policies and their effects.

haha, cool. And what about the Belgium-like and completely depressing countries?