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The Federal Budget Gets Wired (totally cool)

``` [I don't have the original header for this.]

>PLEASE REPOST > > For Release: May 30th, 1995 > For more info, call: > Nathan Newman (510) 452-1820 > Anders Schneiderman (510) 643-8293 > ccer@violet.berkeley.ed > Center for Community Economic Research > > > The Federal Budget Gets Wired: > Citizens on the Internet Can Now Play Senator > On Interactive Budget Simulation > >Berkeley, CA: Taking interactive civic education to a new level, >UC-Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research (CCER) today >demonstrated a new on-line National Federal Budget Simulator that lets >anyone on the World Wide Web try their hand at bala ncing the budget. The >simulation is located at: > > http://garnet.berkeley.edu:3333/budget/budget.html > > Going beyond the rhetoric and headlines of budget choices, this >simulation allows Internet users to control a whole range of budget >choices, submit a budget, and interactively see the changes in the federal >deficit. Internet "Senators" can get into the nitty-gritty of controlling >mass transit spending, weapons procurement, national parks allocations, >and social welfare spending and see results of cuts in all areas of the >$1.5 trillion budget. > > Additionally, Internet "Senators" are given interactive control of >the $455 billion in "tax expenditures" in the federal budget. Some have >called these tax deductions the largest hidden entitlements of the federal >budget and this simulation demonstrates how adding them into the budget >debate opens up far wider possibilities for balancing the federal budget. > > Other features of the simulation include: > > ** Generating automatic bar charts that lets you see the results of your > budget choices > ** Line-by-line printouts of the results of specific categorical cuts or > increases > ** Links to analyses of the federal budget on the Internet from a > variety of perspectives > ** The ability to view an "Internet Budget"--the tabulation and > averaging of all successfully balanced budgets on the simulation. > > > The National Budget Simulator is part of the ongoing work of the >Center for Community Economic Research to promote economic and civic >literacy through interactive Internet tools. "The Internet has a lot of >flash and glitz, but most of what is on the Wo rld Wide Web are cute >toys," notes Dr. Anders Schneiderman, CCER's co-director. "This National >Budget Simulator is one of the first tools on the Internet that really >takes advantage of the interactive nature of the technology to enhance >civic education." > > The Center's Economic Democracy Information Network (EDIN) project >has supported and trained a whole range of community organizations in >getting on-line and helped bring their voices to the Information >Superhighway. The EDIN project has been cited in sou rces ranging from USA >Today to The Nation. PC Computing declared the EDIN server (located at >http://garnet.berkeley.edu:3333/) one of the 29 "Highlights of the >Internet" in their September 1994 issue. The Center is also an ongoing >consultant to the Ass ociation of Bay Area Governments in getting cities >and government agencies in Northern California on-line > > "The next challenge for those dedicated to information access and >democracy," said CCER co-director Nathan Newman, "is to create tools that >make economic policy choices clear to the public. Numbers gets thrown >around by politicians and we are working to create the tools and the links >to background information that will allow citizens to 'get under the hood' >of those numbers." > > --- end ---- > >Federal Budget Gets Wired >--for more info, call (510) 452-1820 > >Center for Community Economic Research >c/o UC-Berkeley Institute for Industrial Relations > 2521 Channing Wy. Berkeley, CA 94704 >(510) 643-8293 <==================================================================> ```

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