Can You Balance the Budget?

A while ago the NYT presented a budget puzzle for its readers. The puzzle allows the reader to choose among the various proposals to reduce the deficit over the next 4 years and the next 19 years (it was 5 and 20, but some time has passed). The puzzle shows that anyone who wants to balance the budget has some hard choices. For example it is impossible to balance without cutting some programs you might not want to cut. It is harder to balance without raising taxes. This shows how dishonest some politicians are being when they promise to balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time.

Here's my plan: Craig's choices.