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If you’ve ever said you could do a better job balancing the budget than the elected officials you repeatedly insult on social media, you’re now invited to put your money — make that the state’s money — where your mouth is.
PAR, LSU and The Advocate have all teamed up to launch the online game, Solve The Budget!
“It really puts you in the shoes of the governor or the legislator who has to make these decisions,” says PAR President Steven Procopio.
“You can lower the state sales tax rate,” Procopio says. “You can eliminate income tax. You can give corporations more breaks. You can increase the gas tax so you have more money for infrastructure and things like that.
“We have questions on the LA GATOR Program, or the Educational Savings Accounts or vouchers,” Procopio continues. “We have the teacher pay raise in there, early childhood education, college and university spending, transportation is also a part of it, (as is) healthcare.”
The game involves a list of budget items, each with a yes or no choice as to whether to include them in the budget or not.
Each item also indicates the amount of money that it would cost or how much it would increase state revenue.
“The hardest part was trying to figure out what questions not to put in there so as to not inundate and overwhelm people,” says Procopio.
With each selection, a bar graph at the top of the page would indicate the size of your budget deficit or surplus.
“There’s no line for general waste, because everyone thinks it’s just general waste,” Procopio nots. “We actually make you make the same choices like a legislature would have to make and specifically find areas to cut.”
Procopio says one practical purpose behind this exercise is to illustrate how daunting of a task it is for the legislature to balance the budget.
“If you want to just cut taxes, that’s great, but then you’ve got to figure out where you’re going to cut them from,” says Procopio. “At the end of the day it’s all about money, and you need to have it to spend it. And if you need it, you need taxes.”
Solve The Budget! will remain live through the rest of the legislative session.
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