Five Macrogovernors

Four of the five macrogovernors are domain-specific. Each watches a single domain signal and responds with a domain-specific instrument inside a corridor legislated by Congress. They fire on different signals, with different instruments, independently and simultaneously. None requires a congressional vote to act — the rules are written once, then the system executes. The fifth macrogovernor, Debt Sunset, is cause-agnostic and is covered below.

Each has historical precedent: a discretionary tool that worked when politics aligned, or a standing rule that already operates inside corridors abroad. The Accord innovation is making them automatic.

The four above each contain a domain. Debt Sunset contains the system. It watches the projected retirement date — the year the debt held by the public reaches zero under the enacted rates — and adjusts the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate together inside a narrow automatic band. If the four above keep their domains in check and the projected date holds, Debt Sunset stays inactive. When drift accumulates anywhere in the system — from one domain breaking out, from several drifting at once, or from a cause none of the four can address — Debt Sunset catches it.

Same card format as the four, so the basic mechanism reads in the same shape. The expanded sections below describe what makes Debt Sunset different.

Congress has failed to retire the federal debt for 70 years because the mechanism has always been political. Voters bear the cost of discipline and reap the benefit of indiscipline — a structural asymmetry that no legislature can close by willpower. The Fiscal Debt Sunset Governor removes the decision from politics entirely.

Each year the Statistics Board projects, under the enacted rates, the year the debt held by the public reaches zero, and Treasury publishes the following year's top income rate, VAT and payroll tax rate by October 1. If the projected date has moved 2 or more years beyond, or ahead of, the most recent retirement date, the three instruments move together, in steps, by the amount that brings the date back to within 1 year, and the new projection becomes the most recent date. The coupling preserves the progressive burden distribution. Inside the automatic band: no congressional vote. No executive order. Mechanical.

All three instruments move together. Every coupled step moves the top income rate 0.25pp, the VAT 0.25pp and the payroll rate 0.0625pp in the same direction, and a move is as many steps as it takes to bring the projected retirement date back to within 1 year of the most recent date. Coupling preserves the progressive distribution across the band — neither labor, consumption nor capital absorbs the adjustment alone.

Symmetric: automatic moves are limited to a total of +2.0pp on the top income rate, +2.0pp on the VAT and +0.5pp on the payroll rate from the launch rates — 8 coupled steps up or, mirrored for relief, down. The band floor and ceiling are the launch rate less and plus the band; a move beyond them, in either direction, requires an act of Congress.

• Launch rates: the Statistics Board sets the launch rates — the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate — in Year 1 so the projected path is on track for retirement by 2080. That first projection is the first “most recent retirement date.”
• Upward move (coupled steps): the projected retirement date has slipped 2 or more years beyond the most recent date. The three rates step up by the amount that brings the projection back to within 1 year.
• Downward move (coupled steps): the projected retirement date has moved 2 or more years ahead of the most recent date. The three rates step down by the amount that brings the projection back to within 1 year. The two-year threshold keeps a single good or bad year from moving rates.
• Annual publication: Treasury publishes the following year's rates by October 1. Effective January 1. 90+ day notice for payroll systems and taxpayers. Governor calculations are published quarterly for transparency.
• Two retirement dates: the general fund reaches zero when debt held by the public is zero with the Climate Adaptation Trust and the Financial Stability Reserve intact as sovereign wealth — that is the date the governor projects. The general ledger reaches zero earlier, when debt held by the public falls to the balance of the two trusts — the General Fund borrowing from the two trusts, which is lending, not funding. Rate changes beyond the automatic band, before or after either date, require congressional action.

Success is the central case closing. The stress case is a boundary: the deterioration in growth, health cost and the interest premium, after the launch rates are set, that the governor's 8 automatic steps still absorb. A scenario that misses the band is reported as measured, never suppressed. The Year-10 deployable column shows the pre-governor fiscal gap; the rightmost columns show what the governor does in response. The boundary's numbers move with every run and live in the methodology artifact, not here.

Our grandchildren will not inherit this debt — central (closes), optimistic (closes), stress beyond boundary (reported, does not close).

The automatic band is the statute's limit, not a forecast: canon fixes the governor's method, never its outcome. Where a path drifts beyond what 8 coupled steps recover, the page says so and Congress holds the next move.

The Debt Sunset Governor is the fifth macrogovernor in the Accord architecture. Its job is not to be active constantly — a projected date that holds within 2 years fires nothing — but to guarantee that the projected retirement date cannot drift without a mechanical correction in response, and that any drift beyond the automatic band is reported to Congress rather than absorbed silently.

Debt Sunset is cause-agnostic. It responds to the symptom (a moving projected retirement date), not to any particular source. The other governors address specific domain signals: speculation, input costs, healthcare costs, and financial stability, each with a domain-specific instrument. If a domain response is sufficient to keep fiscal trajectory on track, Debt Sunset stays inactive and no tax adjustment occurs. Only when domain responses fail to contain the drift does Debt Sunset fire, moving the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate together within its automatic band.

This produces the layered response that good utility architecture requires: domain-specific response first, system-level response only if the domain response is insufficient. Debt Sunset is the fiscal backstop. The other four handle their domains; Debt Sunset catches whatever they miss, and holds the projected retirement date regardless of cause.

• Debt — names what is being governed: the outstanding federal obligation.
• Sunset — the end-state the governor guarantees: the debt sets to zero on a fixed 50-year arc.
• Governor — consistent with the other macrogovernor naming (Speculation Brake, Input Shield, Healthcare Cost Brake, Financial Stability).

Debt Sunset is the only macrogovernor whose trigger is cause-agnostic. The other four each respond to a single domain signal (asset surges, energy prices, access-adjusted Distributed Healthcare GDP share, interbank stress) with a domain-specific instrument. Debt Sunset responds to the symptom — a moving projected retirement date — regardless of source. It catches anything the four miss: demographic drag, rate spikes, multiple small drifts accumulating, or domain responses that were insufficient.

Worked example. If access-adjusted health spending crosses the Healthcare Cost Brake's warning line, the Brake fires first: American Healthcare Quality Board clawback cuts fees up to 2%. If that clawback keeps the fiscal trajectory on track, Debt Sunset stays inactive — the cost problem was contained inside healthcare and no tax adjustment occurs. If the clawback is insufficient and the projected retirement date still slips 2 or more years, Debt Sunset fires. Taxes then respond to the fiscal problem, not the healthcare problem per se — because the healthcare problem has become a fiscal problem.

That layering is the architectural choice: domain-specific response first; system-level response only if the domain response is insufficient. Four domain governors handle their domains; Debt Sunset catches whatever they miss.

The four peer governors all have at least partial historical analogs — discretionary precedents that worked, or standing corridor-bound rules that operate today in some jurisdiction. The Accord innovation for those four is making them automatic.

Debt Sunset has no real precedent. The closest comparisons are spending-side debt brakes (Switzerland 2003, Germany’s Schuldenbremse 2009) and monetary policy rules (the Taylor Rule). Spending brakes constrain outlays; Debt Sunset adjusts revenue. Monetary rules adjust short rates within a mandate; Debt Sunset couples the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate to preserve the progressive distribution as it moves. No country has codified an automatic, forward-looking, symmetric tax-rate corridor tied to a multi-decade debt-retirement target.

That’s why Debt Sunset gets the longest treatment on this page and why the other four fit into shorter cards: the others can point to lived precedent and just need to be made automatic. Debt Sunset needs the architecture explained because nothing exactly like it has been tried before.