Hey! You! Fix the Budget!

In which John discusses the New York Times's web-based application allowing each of us to examine the extent and complexity of the United States federal budget deficit and the difficulty of balancing the budget. Do we increase taxes or cut spending? Or, more plausibly but less politically viable, both raise taxes and lower spending? Also there is some talk of pizza shirts.

HERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS TO NERDFIGHTASTIC THINGS:

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Other Channels

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Nerdfighteria

A Bunny
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[hskatkat]

the budget link now leads to a company that allows you to buy instagram followers. Oh, how times have changed.

[saberepee]

Words do not describe how much I wish that The NYTimes would regularly update this tool. 

[Datarror]

...the tool may be a bit outdated, but even with imposing a bunch of higher taxes on the the wealthy and making some aggressive cuts (esp. in military), I was only comfortable bringing it up to solving the (then-projected) 2015 shortfall and putting a little over a trillion toward the 2030 shortfall. I found that I _could_ push it over the edge, but not without doing things that I think would do more harm than overall benefit.

[acrrazywriter]

I fixed it! It involves changing the retirement age and such, which makes me feel bad... but it saves a LOT of money! Troop reductions, national sales tax, and carbon tax are also part of it. Difficult decisions to make all around, but hopefully Congress will be able to make some of them!
Thanks for sharing, John. :)

[WarbossPepe]

"Selling my Books to Hollywood"

that is what he says!

[MegaBacktalk]

You make me feel smart and Hank is fun to watch! You guys are the perfect power-duo!!!

[Bradatimrkonja]

Why is everyone pissed off at taxing the rich?

[Jonesle]

I love this video.

When I took government my freshman year, we had an exercise where we split into groups with a huge list of the spending and taxes we could cut or increase and my professor told us to try to find a way to fix the debt.

[VivianJade]

Still against selling your book to Hollywood?

[eda]

why is it, that everytime I have to study for an exam I "somehow" find myself on youtube, in John and Hank's videos? and I never seem to be able to stop watching.

[Wewin]

Taxed the rich, tightened up loopholes and cut the military. B)

[queenofthemunchkins]

Nerdfighters has been officially spread to the system! We watched a vlogbrothers video in class today! My teacher said we were going to watch a video by someone called the nerdbrothers. Me and my nerdfighter friend look at each other from across the room wondering if she had mistaken your username, and then she started talking about John, and we flashed our nerdfighter signs. It really made my day. Keep making awesome videos so it will continue. I am definitely going to tell her about your Fre

[JuanPollacchi]

So you don't like selling you books to Hollywood. Does it have something to do with the way they portray them artistically?, Or the way that Hollywood works in terms of buying content policies and licencing?.

[glassisland]

Thanks for pointing the NYT app out, John - it's a good quick look at how hard it would really be to balance the budget at this point (and think how much harder it is when making those decisions isn't as easy as clicking a button).

You have remembered your awesome today. :)

[lordofdarkdudes]

littel socialist me found it to be really easy to balance the budget. Tax the rich

[oohLaLanvin]

God, I love the New York Times and their infographics <3
And good job with all the graphics you've included in your recent videos :)
Being a visual learner, they're super useful!

[MusicIan]

If that's what the deficit looks like for most "developed" countries...why are we doing it and why are we calling it "developed"?

[ivanzane]

Yes, I did it yesterday. Created a $3B surplus in the short term, and a $220B surplus in the long term. I went after the really big ticket items first, and then played with the more marginal items -- two-thirds spending cuts and one-third tax increases/reforms. It wasn't that it was difficult to figure out how to do it. The difficulty lies in the political will to implement it.

[HallowsNotHorcruxes]

Dear John,

I have just finished a literary analysis on Looking For Alaska for my school.

I have come to the conclusion that you are really, really good.

Sincerely,
HallowsNotHorcruxes7

[peaceluvcandy]

I did this in my high school civics class last year! Even though I'm (apparently) very liberal, I managed to balance the budget with nearly equal spending cuts and tax raises before everyone else in the class.