To achieve a surplus in the federal government budget, the best set of actions would be:
Increase tax rates for individual income and corporate income taxes. Decrease the number of employees as well as cuts in spending for social security and defense.
This option focuses on increasing revenue through higher tax rates while also reducing expenditures, which are both crucial for generating a budget surplus. By increasing individual and corporate income taxes, the government can collect more revenue, and by decreasing spending, it can reduce the overall budget deficit or create a surplus. The other options either reduce revenue or do not sufficiently cut spending.