Home  About  In the News  Publications  Blog  Join  Donate  FDR Distinguished Public Service Award in Washington DC, April 9th, 2008. Photos by Nick Bradley. Announcements National Expo: July 11th Hyde Park Summit: August 14-17 Essay Winners Announced in The Nation On Campus Iowa Chapter Holds Forum Zach Hindin in the GW Hatchet Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things." — Teddy Roosevelt    Balancing the Budget > Roosevelt Home > Roosevelt Challenges > Balancing the Budget By Kai H Stinchcombe Categories: Economic policy, Public administration and management The Challenge: balance the budget and ensure sustainable spending in the future Important Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of Principles Meaningful: our contribution to this challenge will produce a real change in the lives of our fellow human beings. One can imagine a world in which the challenge is solved, and such a world is better than the one we live in today. Relevant: the challenge is relevant to the social contract project that Roosevelt has embarked upon The American conservative movement has engaged in a deliberate, strategic, and well-funded campaign to create an unbalanced budget -- to borrow and spend now to force progressives to have to make tough choices later. Budget discipline is a sustainability issue -- politicians are spending today what we will have to pay for tomorrow, and in the process are telling future generations, "You will have fewer choices because we didn't want to pay for what we spent." That's a shame. Innovative We're looking for policy challenges where innovation is needed: where there isn't already a clear solution or best practices, but solutions can be developed creatively. Our goal is to develop options, not to lobby or advocate for a solution that is already known or to debate among several yes or no outcomes or pre-defined policy choices. Other organizations do the important work of debating and lobbying, that's just not our place in the process. Typically if you're looking at a standard policy debate you can apply what's known as the "Roosevelt Reframe" to develop new strategies to advance shared values. So rather than "should we engage in race-based affirmative action in college admissions" to which the potential answers are "yes" and "no", you can ask "how do we make our colleges more diverse", a goal we hope is shared by those on both sides of that debate. So many budget issues are issues of political courage -- it's always unpopular to cut spending and it's always unpopular to raise revenue -- and so politicians will often just coast. Our generation is an ideal place for a political shot in the arm -- we can be straightforward, courageous, and intellectually honest in a way that politicians are unlikely to do, and as young people we are in many ways an ideal spokesperson for the issue. Feasible Approachable: given the level of research and discourse already available and given who else is working on the issue, college students with a range of experience levels and with varied types of expertise can contribute meaningfully to the debate and are likely to think of good ideas. We don't want something so technical only engineering majors can contribute to it, or something that is already dominated by another think tank or advocacy organization. Practical: the challenge is stated as a specific, measurable, and achievable goal, incremental progress toward which could be made by chipping away at the problem at various levels of government. The statement is not too broad or too narrow. One good way to make sure something is a good policy challenge rather than a debate or advocacy problem is to think of what sorts of innovative ideas might be produced for the 25 ideas publication series on that topic. Budget issues are ideal for us to approach because they range from very big and visionary -- desigining new tax systems like VATs -- to very specific -- closing tax loopholes or eliminating wasteful programs. This range is ideal for Roosevelt's involvement because it allows us to sketch out a broader set of philosophies and goals and at the same time address some more narrow issues where we would be able to have a more tangible impact. Potential avenues for exploration include: Bringing the social security and medicare deficits into check Budget projection rules and a better budget process (e.g. paygo, earmark reform) Fairer and more strategic tax enforcement Stopping people who move profits overseas to evade taxes Base-expanding taxes like VAT Let's find budget cuts in every department - cold war defense stuff and random subsidies that don't do anything New sources of revenue, e.g. carbon taxes Comments Kyle Atwell, Sun 8 Jul 10:21 pm PST: Balancing the budget is a huge issue that America needs to address. We currently have the highest defense budget since WWII. We are fighting two wars abroad, and still investing billions of dollars into new technology that we cannot afford. My concern with this challenge though is the broadness of it... I could imagine looking at any of the bills faced by Congress, and hacking away at them based on my personal interests. However, I am not sure that the final 25 ideas compilation we would produce from this issue would be focused enough on any particular issue, but rather would dabble in various issues across the board.   The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359