Fiscal Discipline

Sensible use of national debt: fund infrastructure, fund during black swans. But we've tapped it too hard.

The Golden Rule (Hard Law)

Borrow only for assets with measurable yield: infrastructure, grids, ports, water, R&D platforms. No borrowing for operations/transfers outside declared recessions or disasters.

Debt Brakes & Stabilizers (Automatic)

• Debt/GDP glidepath rule: Set a declining band (-0.5 pp/yr outside recessions). Miss it → automatic reserve kicks in.
• Interest/Revenue cap: Net interest ≤12% of federal receipts. Breach triggers auto-reserve.
• Countercyclical carve-out: In NBER recession or declared black swan, caps relax only for 4-8 quarters; roll off automatically.

Capital Budget + ROI Discipline

• Federal capital budget distinct from OpEx
• Every capital project publishes 5/10/20-yr ROI
• Miss targets → automatic clawback and future scoring penalty

Monetary Policy: Keep the Fed Boring

• Independence codified: No presidential rate-setting; FOMC votes published next day
• No fiscal dominance: QE/QT only for market function in crisis; no routine debt monetization
• Term-out issuance: More 20s/30s to reduce rollover risk
• Plumbing > politics: Standing repo sized for liquidity, not backdoor QE

Kill the Leakage (Rent Chokepoints)

• Ban open-market buybacks
• Public-corp tax = 0%, private-corp tax = top personal rate
• Wealth-tax floor funds CET + cushions debt
• Procurement reform: fixed-fee + open-book; blacklist chronic change-order abuse

Program Sunsets & PAYGO+

• All new entitlements sunset in 10 years unless re-authorized with KPIs
• PAYGO tightened: offsets must be same-category, no off-budget gimmicks

What This Achieves

• Max free-market dynamics: Capital goes to growth or straight to owners
• Min rent-seeking: Starve the moats that push households into debt
• Debt that matters only: Long-life assets, crisis buffers - automatically reversed when skies clear
• A boring Fed: Deep markets, low drama, zero presidential rate cosplay

25-Year Outcome

• Debt/GDP: 55-65% and gently declining
• Net interest: ≤10% of receipts
• Social Security: 75-year solvency "boringly green"