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Budgets and Calculators
These sites let users crunch their own numbers for personal, state, local or national fiscal issues.

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In a follow-up to its 2003 game, MPR once again invites users to step into the governor's shoes and do battle with a $4.6 billion deficit. A slick, simplified Flash interface puts state budget options on a single screen and instantly reflects players' spending or revenue choices on its scoreboard. Users can now also write in why they chose to cut or add spending to a particular category, generating possible reporting opportunities.

2003 Minnesota Public Radio Budget Balancer

Minnesota Public Radio invites you to be governor for a day and try to solve the state's $4.2 billion tax deficit in this Batten Award-winning project. The budget balancer offers a wide array of choices for balancing the budget, including across the board spending cuts, increasing property taxes, cutting specific programs, and delaying payments. The balancer even gives you comments on your choices, warning you about potential political and economic fallout that could result from your decisions. Choose carefully.
See J-Lab's article on this project

CBC.ca - The Budget Balancing Act

Here's an effort to balance a national, not just a state, budget. How should Canada spend its annual budget surplus – increase foreign aid, cut taxes or pay down the national debt? With audio, animation and Monty Python-style humor, the CBC's interactive exercise informs users about various political parties' demands for the surplus and lets users experiment with their own spending priorities.

Seattle Times "Ax and Tax"

"Last year, we asked you to try your hand at solving the state's worst budget shortfall in decades. Guess what? The problem is bigger now." So says the introduction to the Seattle Times' latest web-based calculator. As the title implies, you choose what to cut from the budget and what to tax additionally to fix a $2.45 billion state budget shortfall. Be careful, though, as pop-up windows in response to your choices will warn you that people won't lose their cherished programs without a fight, and that Washington voters are none to fond of taxes. The Times plans to compile the data submitted by visitors into an article about budget priorities.
See J-Lab's article on this project

Austin American-Satesman's "Budget Game"
(Registration Required)

The 78th Texas Legislature is looking at a $9.9 billion gap between the state's expected revenue and what Texas must spend to maintain existing programs. Readers get a chance to play lawmaker and fill that gap through a mix of spending cuts and new taxes. The budget exercise builds in a political cost for each choice. Being in favor of a tax on food, for instance, would increase a public relations liability that could affect a politicians reelection. The trick is to fill the gap but keep your job.