Legal Niches

Let's Spore the National Debt

By pete_gallagher

Yesterday, Matt Drudge linked to a USA Today article with the derisive headline "Video Game to Reduce Deficit?" But is that really as crazy as it sounds?

The USA Today piece reported that Erskine Bowles, who's heading up President Obama's "war on the federal deficit," talked to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about making a video game that would let anyone "take a stab at balancing the budget."

The idea is that in order for deficit reduction to succeed, citizens have to understand the size of the budget, how the process works and, most important, what the tradeoffs are between benefits and their costs. That process, though already public, is basically inaccessible to anyone without the time (and patience) to read through thousands of pages of studies, estimates and commission reports. What the public needs is a compelling and concise model to play with that would let them get a handle on the dynamics of the federal budget without needing advanced degrees in accounting, law and economics.

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).