We the Compounders

Balance the budget

Your plan, against the Congressional Budget Office's numbers.

On today's laws, the Congressional Budget Office projects the government will keep spending more than it takes in, every year, and that the debt will grow faster than the economy. Change taxes and spending below and watch what happens to the deficit and the debt through 2056. There's no right answer: every choice has a cost, and people weigh them differently. The page shows what it assumes, so you can judge for yourself.

1Taxes

Income tax on wages and other ordinary income

Today: seven brackets from 10% to 37%, a standard deduction of $16,100 ($32,200 for married couples) or itemized deductions, and credits for children and low-income workers. A flat tax replaces the brackets and deductions with one rate on income above an allowance. The credits stay either way.

Capital gains and dividends

Profits from selling investments held over a year, and most stock dividends. Today they're taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% depending on income, plus 3.8% at higher incomes, lower than the top rates on wages.

Corporate income tax

21% of corporate profits since 2018; 35% before that.

Estate tax

A tax on what someone leaves at death above an exemption, $15 million a person in 2026 ($30 million for a married couple), at 40%. Anything left to a spouse or a charity is exempt.

More ideas from CBO's list

From the Congressional Budget Office's Options for Reducing the Deficit (December 2024), each at CBO's own 10-year estimate. They were scored before the 2025 tax law, and some overlap with each other, so treat the totals as rough.

What would you pay?

Federal income tax in 2026, today and under your plan. Payroll and state taxes aren't included.

2Spending

Change today's programs

A percentage up or down from what CBO projects each program will cost, every year from 2027. Cutting a benefit 10% means every recipient gets 10% less, or 10% fewer people get it.

Add or expand programs

Dollars a year in today's money, growing with the economy. The published estimates below are for scale. Each was built on its own assumptions about who's covered and what it replaces.

  • CBO (2020): single-payer designs would raise federal health spending $1.5 to $3.0 trillion in 2030, depending on design, while replacing most of what households and employers pay now
  • RAND (2019): about $2.4 trillion more federal spending a year, with total U.S. health spending up only 1.8%
  • Mercatus (2018): $32.6 trillion over 10 years
  • CBO and JCT (2021): the House’s Build Back Better child care and universal preschool plan, made permanent: $752 billion over 10 years, about $75 billion a year
  • Penn Wharton (2022): universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds: $351 billion over 10 years
  • CBO (2021): the 2021 infrastructure law added $415 billion of new spending over 10 years
  • ASCE (2025): a $3.7 trillion gap over 10 years between what’s needed and what’s planned, across all governments and private owners
  • Penn Wharton (2021): free community college: $299 billion over 10 years
  • Georgetown CEW (2020): tuition-free public college for families under $125,000: about $50 billion in its first year, federal and state together
  • CBO and JCT (2021): the 2021 expanded child tax credit, made permanent: $1.6 trillion over 10 years, measured against the smaller credit of the time (today’s is $2,200 a child)

3Interest rates

CBO expects the average rate the Treasury pays to rise from 3.4% now to about 4.2% by 2056. Rates could come in higher or lower, and a bigger debt can push them up. A change reaches the whole debt over about five years, as old debt is paid off with new.

4Your plan

Debt, as a share of the economy

Each year's deficit, as a share of the economy

Below zero is a surplus: paying debt down.

Year by year

Billions of dollars, your plan.

Take it to the ballot

Congress makes these choices, and you choose Congress. Share your plan with your representatives, and ask the people running for office what theirs is: your ballot, and questions to ask →

What this assumes

  • Nobody changes what they do. Tax changes are measured on today's incomes, sales and estates. Big changes would change behavior: higher capital gains rates mean people sell less often, a higher estate tax means more planning and giving, and lower rates mean the reverse. So large increases would likely raise less than shown, and cuts would cost less. Changes to the economy's growth aren't modeled either.
  • Income tax: re-run on the IRS's 2023 returns, grouped by income, with incomes grown to today with the economy, then applied to CBO's income tax projection as a percentage. Within each income group, incomes are assumed evenly spread. Today's capital gains rates are approximated by each group's average income.
  • Estate tax: a curve through the Tax Policy Center's estimates at a $13.99 million exemption (4,250 taxable estates, $28.9 billion) and a $7.14 million exemption (9,540 estates, $47.6 billion). Far below those, it's a rough extrapolation.
  • Spending: a percentage of CBO's projection for each program, or new dollars that grow with the economy. Health coverage for everyone counts only the federal cost: it would also replace much of what households and employers pay for health insurance today, which this budget doesn't show.
  • Interest: CBO's interest bill, plus interest at CBO's average rate on any debt above or below its path, plus any rate change you choose.
  • Starting point: the actual debt on September 30, 2026. CBO's projections were made in February 2026, before the Supreme Court's tariff ruling. CBO said in August that trade changes since then add about $0.9 trillion to deficits from 2027 to 2036, which isn't included here.

Sources

For education only, not investment, tax or legal advice. Projections are not predictions.