Build a Budget Workshop

I've been considering a side career as a smartphone app developer lately. Not that I would have the foggiest idea how to write the programming or design the layout- I just frequently get ideas for applications that would manage to educate Americans while simultaneously captivating their attention with all the ferocity of that technological crack-cocaine known as "Angry Birds." One such idea is "Build a Budget Workshop"- an app which would allow the American people to tinker with the Federal Budget in all its bulk, and decide for themselves which programs they would like to see cut in order to achieve an ideal, balanced budget. Such an app would serve the purpose of both informing the American people of what is really in the budget, and what effect it would have on their lives if the Republicans actually passed the massive budget cuts that they seem to be under the impression they have the public mandate for. Alright, maybe it's no "Angry Birds," but it would educate an American public desperately in need of clarification on budgetary matters.

Take for example, a recent World Public Opinion poll conducted around the time of the election last November, asking Americans how much of the budget they believed went to and should go to foreign aid, the only part of the budget Americans consistently tell pollsters they would like to see cut. As Talking Points Memo points out, even here Americans aren't really sure what they want: "respondents guessed, on average, that foreign aid spending represented 27% of the federal budget. To trim spending, the same respondents suggested that, on average, foreign aid should make up a slimmer 13% of the total budget, surely delivering massive savings. The problem? Foreign aid is actually a miniscule 1% of the total budget. Even eliminating it altogether would do little to balance the budget or reduce the deficit."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/polls-show-americans-largely-clueless-about-where-us-budget-goes.php

It would seem that even those government expenditures Americans would most like to see cut, they value enough to say should take up 13% of the Federal budget- an entire 13 times more than what they actually do! However, Talking Points also points out that Americans lowball other parts of the budget that take up a much, much larger piece of the pie- citing a Rasmussen poll from just a week ago where Americans in one breath say that the defense budget should not be cut, and in another say that an adequate American military budget need not be 3 times larger than any other nation- despite the fact that our current military expenditures are a whole 7 times larger than our next highest competitor, China. Thus, to the degree that a public mandate for cutting the deficit exists in the country, it seems that Americans are most hospitable to doing so through defense cuts, and raising taxes on the wealthy (an idea supported by 65% of the public according to CNN and 59% according to Gallup in November and September, respectively, of last year), thus begging the question- why did they so overwhelmingly last November vote for the party that would be least hospitable to both of those ideas?