Article 19 Activity Time
Wanna try the experiment that produced the budget wish list in the post below? Here you go. Here are the instructions laid out in the study questionnaire.

As you may know, the White House proposes a budget to Congress. In this survey, you will make up a budget for 17 major areas of the budget. We’re not including some big entitlement programs like Medicare or Social Security, which by law cannot simply be adjusted year to year. For these 17 areas, a budget of about $912 billion has been proposed for 2006. Please imagine that you have $1,000 of your tax money to divide among these 17 areas.

Here is how your $1000 is presently allotted, by the President's '06 budget:
--Education.............................................$75.23
--Energy: Conservation--Developing Renewable Resources..$2.37
--Job Training and Employment...........................$7.87
--Medical Research......................................$32.04
--Veteran's Benefits....................................$34.46
--Homeland Security.....................................$29.96
--Housing...............................................$32.92
--Environment and Natural Resources.....................$30.72
--UN and UN Peacekeeping................................$2.48
--Military Aid to Foreign Countries.....................$8.97
--Humanitarian and Economic Aid to Foreign Countries....$15.56
--State Department......................................$6.66
--Space Program and Science Research....................$27.10
--Federal Administration of Justice.....................$45.12
--Transportation........................................$76.22
--Defense/Military......................................$478.96
--Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental.........................$93.36
--Deficit Reduction .....................................$0.00

To see how the respondents adjucted the budget (made up of about 30% independents, 33% Republicans, 35% Democrats), check the study here. I listed the increases/decreases that a majority agreed upon in my post below.

This is probably more properly an exercise in psychology rather than a gauge of true public priorities; some of these categories are more explicit in purpose (veteran's benefits) than others (transportation). Still it's interesting. These programs, at 910 billion, amount to less than half of the total budget which is over 2 trillion. Still, if you wanted to balance the budget using only these 17 program areas, and if my math and understanding are correct, with the proposed deficit at 390 billion, you'd need to bring that deficit reduction number up to about $428.57 from 0---almost half of our allotment. Which would you increase? Which would get cut?