Be your own budget hero

The Marketplace program on NPR has created an interactive exercise Budget Hero, which allows you to modify the federal budget according to your personal criteria. So I gave it a try. I was able to lower the deficit, but did not eliminate it. The game has a few limitations. It allows only changes to the budget that have already been proposed and the Congressional Budget Office has put a price tag on. Which means it allows for eliminating the Bush era tax cuts, but doesn't provide for raising taxes on the rich beyond that (it does warn the repealing the Bush cuts is politically almost impossible). It allows for selecting three "badges" that represent personal goals you would like the budget to meet (one of mine was green environment), but doesn't suggest which budget options would help meet those goals. It only tells you whether you met those goals when you ask for an evaluation.