That at least is what I'm given to understand after playing a new version of the venerable think tank's Fiscal Ship video game. Readers of this website will remember that I am a longtime fan of this particular strategy title. For those of you out of the loop, the goal of the game is to select policies that will reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio to a sustainable level by 2041. It's addictive. I attended the launch party on Massachusetts Avenue and won the game twice the first night it was available playing as both myself and Dennis Kucinich.
Anyway, an updated version has just been released that allows players to run through the game as either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Naturally I wanted to be the first to test out the new features.
Unfortunately, there aren't very many. Other than the title screen, the only new thing I noticed was the ability to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. Oh well. Tetris has been the same for thirty years and it never gets old.
I went with Trump first. His platform has always been a little hazy to me. In the past he has spoken positively of single-payer health care and the need to raise taxes on the wealthy. The first thing I did was enact the Buffett Rule. Then I eliminated the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax, push through some new health initiatives, shored up the VA, and sent out the deportation force (this feature, though new, has a few kinks in it: the description of the "cons" seems to have been lifted from something to do with veterans—oops). After that I hit a brick wall. There was no "Quit NATO" button and I wasn't allowed to renegotiate our trade deals.
I had no choice but to go to Trump's campaign website and look at his official platform. I quickly realized that the rumors are true and the current Trump tax plan is barely different from Mitt Romney's. There was also nothing on the site about deporting 1/30 of the population. So I switched gears. I cut income and corporate taxes, simplified brackets, eliminated the estate tax, and let the 11 million people back into the country, presumably through the "big, beautiful door" in the border wall. I increased childcare subsidies and made it easier to import prescription drugs and a few other boring things, all per donaldjtrump.com. By the time I was finished, the country was about twice as broke as before and I had earned only two out of three "priorities" stars.
Then it was Hill Dog's turn. Despite having listened to her DNC speech in its painful entirety, I had absolutely no idea what the specifics of the Clinton platform were, so I went to her campaign website as well. I tried to work through this one more systematically. Examining the issues in order, I found the matching Fiscal Ship buttons for each. I made community college and preschool and public university education free and cut interest rates on student debt. I fought the fossil fuel industry and pushed renewable alternatives. I expanded Obamacare. I mandated paid family leave. I kept defense spending where it is.
To pay for all this, I raised taxes, but only on gazillionaires. The math wasn't checking out. In a desperate attempt to win the game, I cheated. Clinton’s website does not actually say that she will raise taxes on cigarettes, but if she becomes president, I am willing to bet any of my readers a carton of American Spirit Periques that it happens. (Seriously: Email me if you want in on this action.)
By the end, the country was on course to be slightly less broke a quarter century from now than it would be if Trump's policies are enacted. I did manage to earn three stars, though.
The new Trump and Clinton modes on Fiscal Ship are an excellent challenge for veteran players of this absorbing strategy title.