Since 1919

The Prairie News

Since 1919

The Prairie News

Since 1919

The Prairie News

Students and community tackle federal budget

“I wish more members of congress were brave enough to do this,” Smith said.

Smith split the participants into ten groups of four to five people. Each group had to pick a chair person to conduct the votes.

“I’m excited,” Roberts said. “I’ve been looking forward to it all week.” The categories discussed by the participants included general government spending, overall discretionary spending levels, security and defense spending, health care and social security and tax revenues. Each category had many underlying issues to be voted on.

After analyzing each topic, each member had to vote and the majority won. For the purpose of the event, the groups only tallied up monetary gain based on the yes votes.

“We have found that his exercise was one of the best ways to help educate people about where the big numbers are in the federal budget,” Smith said.

Smith would occasionally interrupt the group budget discussions to give everyone an idea of how much time they had left and at what point they should be at.

Thornberry and Smith worked their way through the room and made themselves available to answer questions.

At the end of the meeting, Smith had the chair person from each of the groups announce the amount of money they would be saving the government and where the biggest cuts were made. They also discussed how well the group worked together and if the members shared similar or different opinions on topics.

“Nothing is as good as learning something yourself,” Smith said.

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