Five Macrogovernors

Four of the five macrogovernors are domain-specific: each watches one domain signal and responds with its own instrument inside a corridor legislated by Congress, independently of the others. Each rule is legislated once and then runs without a further vote. The fifth, Debt Sunset, responds to drift from any cause 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's change is to make them automatic.

Debt Sunset watches the whole system: the projected retirement date, the year the debt held by the public reaches zero under the enacted rates. It adjusts the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate together inside a narrow automatic band. While the four keep their domains in check and the projected date holds, Debt Sunset stays inactive. When the projected date drifts, whether from one domain, from several at once, or from a cause none of the four addresses, Debt Sunset responds.

Congress has not retired the federal debt in 70 years because the decision has always been political: voters feel the cost of restraint at once and the cost of borrowing only years later, an asymmetry no legislature closes by willpower. The Debt Sunset Governor takes the decision out of the annual political cycle.

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. Inside the automatic band the move is mechanical: no congressional vote and no executive order. The Federal Reserve's operations sit outside the rule.

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 keeps the distribution progressive 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 central path retires the debt by 2080 with no automatic step. 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, giving payroll systems and taxpayers 90+ days' notice; governor calculations are published quarterly.
• Two retirement dates, two names: no external debt comes first, the year net borrowing from outside the government reaches zero, with the Climate Adaptation Trust’s and the Financial Stability Reserve’s Treasury holdings stated beside it. General Fund debt-free comes after, the year the fund owes nothing to the public or to the trusts; that is the date the governor projects, and the date our grandchildren will not inherit this debt attaches to. Rate changes beyond the automatic band, before or after either date, require congressional action.

Success is the central case closing, and it closes with no automatic step. The conservative case is the 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; it closes with all of them. The stress case beyond that boundary is reported as measured, never suppressed. The Year-10 column is negative through the transition by design; the rightmost columns show the governor's response. The boundary's numbers are generated at every build and published in the methodology artifact.

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: 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.

A projected date that holds within 2 years fires nothing. The governor's job is to guarantee that the projected retirement date cannot drift without a mechanical correction, and that drift beyond the automatic band is reported to Congress.

Debt Sunset responds to drift from any cause. It acts on the symptom, a moving projected retirement date, whatever the source. While a domain response keeps the fiscal trajectory on track, Debt Sunset stays inactive and no tax adjustment occurs; when domain responses fail to contain the drift, Debt Sunset moves the top income rate, the VAT and the payroll rate together within its automatic band. The domain governor responds first; Debt Sunset responds only if that is not enough. Debt Sunset is the fiscal backstop.

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

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 catches what they miss: demographic drag, rate spikes, several small drifts accumulating.

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. If the clawback is insufficient and the projected retirement date still slips 2 or more years, Debt Sunset fires. The tax response then addresses a fiscal problem, which is what the healthcare overrun has become.

Debt Sunset has no close 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.