Go to this website and see what the options are for fixing the deficit...
http://www.minnpost.com/fix_minnesota_deficit/
What did you choose? Was it hard to make cuts? Describe what you did and you can earn GOVERNMENT IN ACTION credit.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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i think raising tobacco and alcohol tax could increase. i didn't agree with every thing they offered didn't seem that reasonable. i wish that they had some more options
ReplyDeleteWere you able to balance the budget?
ReplyDeleteI found this very hard to make cuts to the budget. I never really thought of these hard decisions that government officials need to make! I first raised taxes on alcohol and tobacco. I also put tax on services like car repair and hair salons. I also chose to raise taxes for the top earners. I increased Medical Surcharges. I eliminated the home mortgage and property tax deduction. I created health car networks and adopted medical assistance changes. Lastly, I extended cuts to local government aids. I found this to be hard, I did not want to choose some of the ones I did choose. It allowed me to understand how hard it would be to balance this budget! I was able to come out with surplus of $70 million!
ReplyDeletei think they could increase the tax on smokes and boose but fuel or natural gass witch are nessesitys should not be increased i thin that we should also legalise weed and tax it just like tobaco.
ReplyDeletei think they could increase tax on smoking and drinking, but the other stuff is just rediculous
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of cuts that were made to have a balanced budget total. I ended up with a surplus of $1,298,700,000. I think there were some things that I would definatley do like the increase tax on tobacco and alcohol because you are doing two good things at once. But some of the things were hard to decide on like things about the schools and healthcare issues.
ReplyDeleteNO TAX INCREASE!! I like it just the way it is
ReplyDeleteJust tobacco and alcohol taxes are not going to fix this mess. And SOMETHING is going to have to be done.....$6.2 billion is a lot of money--cuts and taxes may both be required.
ReplyDeleteKristan, I agree, it was hard. LOTS of cuts had to be made.
If you want Gov in Action credit, make it good. Give me some details of what you had to do and what you thought about the process.
Minnesota does definetly need to cut spending/ raise taxes in some areas. I increased sales tax to car repair, hair styling, accounting and legal work. I increased alcohol and tobbaco sales taxes. I created a 10.95% tax bracket for incomes over 150,000 of married couples. I eliminated the home mortgage interest deduction. I extended shifts in state aid to k through twelve schools. I revamped school transportation. I gradually elminiated aid to cities.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really know what areas to cut spending in because I don't know a lot of information about the places they would cut fspending/increase taxes and I didn't for sure know what the ups and downs would be.
It was really easy trying to find options to make the debt go bye bye. Like Ben said the alcohol and tobacco tax can go up because those are bad for you. There also were a lot of things I did not agree on, but I found the ones I wanted to raise.
ReplyDeletei put a 10 percent surcharge on mortagages which made up alot of the gap, and i also made a 10 percenter gap that brought the deficet to right around 20 million
ReplyDeleteI thought balancing the budget was quite difficult! I had to make lots and lots of cuts. However, I think raising taxes on alcohol and tobacco products would be a good idea. I think this is something the government should really take into consideration.
ReplyDeleteIt was really difficult to make cuts in the budget. It's so hard to choose! I did raise tax on tobacco and alcohol because I think they are fine to tax, maybe it will cut people back from using them.
ReplyDeleteI ended up with a surplus of $147,000,000. This was really tricky. Understanding what exactly the bills did and how they effected the budge took a lot of thought.! I instantly raised the tobacco and alcohol that part was easy. But when it came to taxing the higher income families and dealing with school and health care it was a little more thought. To think that this is what the officials go through all teh time is absolutely crazy
ReplyDeletei think it was really hard to balance everything. there are such trhings that you really dont want to cut but you have to choose between them and its hard
ReplyDelete... also im pretty sure if i had to make these kinds of choices that effect the world and its debt can be really stressful. Making sure that most people are happy while you do what is right for the country is a huge job.
ReplyDeleteGood point Delilah~ it is hard to do what you have to do when you know people will not like, such as raising taxes; we know Derek won't like it, but it may have to be done.
ReplyDeleteI think that we could increas the tax on tabacco but not on heath care and clothing, hair styling and other such things. If they increased the tax on tabacco products that no one would want to smoke or anything because they wouldnt be able to afford it. So it would only make our country more healthy. :)
ReplyDeleteI think they should leave everything alone and they should pay their their loan off........
ReplyDeleteThe deficit is really a problem! Cutting and cutting, and there still needs to be more cutting. I raised tax on alcohol and tobacco. Maybe the casino idea would be a good one because the casinos on reservations make a lot of money?
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time balancing the budget in a way I thought was fair. The majority of the money came from high end earners since a lot of people can't afford living comfortably as is. I also raised the liquor and tobacco taxes. I still didn't manage to get rid of all the deficit though.
ReplyDeleteI increased sales tax on alot of things until it was balanced.
ReplyDeleteThis was very hard to do, there were about 16 if not more things that i had to cut. This includes taxing mansions, close corporate loopholes, and the snowbird act. I find it ridiculous on how many things that i had to cut just to fix our negative budget. It was really hard to go threw all the things that we could get rid of and just say oh we don't need this, this isn't important to me. But there are others out there that really need this such things. One thinks to themselves if its just this easy to go on this web site and just say get rid of this do this tax that. My only question is then why doesn't our government do that now just go threw the list and throw out some of the things that we really don't need. I feel as if we didn't put our government in this position, they did it to themselves why should we have to be the ones penalized for it?
ReplyDeleteAlso I put more taxes on the richer people because then the ratio for money taxed and money made is similar for all people.
ReplyDeleteFirst i extend sales taxes to car repair and hair stileing and etc. than i increased taxes on tabacco and alcohol. after that i closed the snowbird loophole and increased the mansion taxes. i elimiated the JOBZ plan and than added the pool health insurance for taxes. i froze the state employes pay and than freed counties to focus on resaults. than i replaced health care services and payment with insurance subsidies. finaly i cut corperate incometax so everyone can b happy lol
ReplyDeleteThis was really hard to do, there were so many things I didn't want them to increase taxes on because we use them everyday. But I think that they could increase tax on tobacco and alcohol but other than that its really hard.
ReplyDeleteI taxed clothing and alcohol, also I taxed mansions and people who are living comftorable and rich, and would be anyway, it was very tough to tax things that i dont think should be taxed, but we need to balance it somehow
ReplyDeletei found that this was very hard to find things to cut. im sure glad it is not me doing this i wouldn't want to do this anyway
ReplyDeleteIn balancing the budget, I raised the price on sales tax on alcohol, also on tobacco, and cut the money needed for special education.
ReplyDeleteFixing the Minnesota budget wasn't super easy!
ReplyDelete*First off I extended sales tax to clothing. This seemed fair because you wouldn't be affected by this until you bought a piece of clothing.
*Next I increased taxes on alcoholic beverages because I think drinking alcohol is bad.
*Next I eliminated the home-mortgage interest deduction. It seemed fair to do this since it wasn't adding a bunch of taxes to property or something. It was just making the people pay what they would have in the first place before the tax cut.
*Next I created health-care networks and insurance exchanges. It sounded like an okay way to reduce health care costs.
*Next I pooled health-insurance purchasing for school districts. If it would really save money it seems like a great idea since it doesn't make someone pay extra for something.
*Next I coordinated state purchasing. If organizing can make us save money, great!
*Lastly, I replaced health-care services and payments with insurance subsidies.This seems like a great way to save money. If people are getting free healthcare...It seems fair for them to pay a little bit!
This was interesting and it showed me just how hard it would be to pick and choose what to cut and what to keep!
And I ended up with a surplus of $266,000,000
ReplyDelete