Could You Balance the Federal Budget?

I write a lot about the intractability of military and entitlement spending and the need to raise taxes to pay down the deficit. This would seem to be an opportunity to walk the walk on the budget talk.

The Budget Challenge game at FederalBudgetChallenge.org puts next year's budget in your hands and tallies the budget implications of your chosen policies. More helpfully, the folks at FBC include a sidebar that explains some of the consequences of each measure. Obviously the game isn't an all-inclusive menu of spending and tax options -- and balancing the federal deficit during the rump of a recession is a long-term project rather than a check-off list for a single fiscal year -- but it's an interesting game, nonetheless.