Deficit and Debt Calculator · Giroux Technologies

Start from a preset

Policy totals

Spending cuts at full phase-in, % of GDP

Revenue increases at full phase-in, % of GDP

Cuts phase in over years

Revenue phases in over years

Policy starts in

Projection length years

Growth

CBO's baseline assumes about 1.8% real growth a year. Pick how much AI adds on top. A bigger economy collects more revenue on the same tax rates.

AI productivity scenario

Extra real growth from AI percentage points a year at full effect

Boost starts in

Reaches full effect over years

How the economy responds

Austerity shrinks demand before it shrinks the deficit. These three dials decide how much and for how long.

Spending-cut multiplier GDP lost per dollar cut

Tax-increase multiplier GDP lost per dollar raised

Years until each year's GDP hit fades 0 = never fades

Starting point and baseline

CBO February 2026 baseline. Edit if you disagree.

GDP, FY2025 $ trillions

Debt held by public $ trillions, end FY2025

Nominal GDP growth % per year

Interest rate on debt % effective, FY2026

Revenue % of GDP, FY2026

Non-interest spending % of GDP, FY2026

Revenue drift pp per year

Spending drift pp per year

Interest rate drift pp per year

Rate response to debt bp per 1 pp of debt/GDP

Automatic stabilizers extra deficit, % GDP per 1% shortfall

Spending that follows AI growth share of the extra GDP, 0 to 1

Deficit in 2035

6.2%

of GDP · baseline 6.2%

Debt held by public, 2035

118%

of GDP · baseline 118%

Deficits avoided, 2026–2035

$0.0T

cumulative vs baseline

GDP vs baseline, 2035

0.0%

same as the CBO path

What could go wrong

Ask Claude for a plain-English read on the side effects of this exact scenario. It sees only your settings and the computed results, never anything typed on this page.

Debt held by the public % of GDP

Yearly deficit % of GDP

GDP versus baseline % difference

Where the deficit change comes from $T per year vs baseline, below zero is smaller

Year by year

FY	GDP	Revenue	Spending	Net interest	Deficit	Deficit % GDP	Debt	Debt % GDP	GDP vs baseline

Dollars in trillions, nominal. Spending excludes net interest. FY2025 row is actuals.

How the math works

The budget identity

Each year: deficit = program spending + net interest − revenue. The deficit is added to debt held by the public. Interest next year is the effective rate times that debt. Debt-to-GDP is the debt divided by that year's nominal GDP.

The policy menu

The checklist is CBO's December 2024 deficit-reduction menu, re-estimated by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget for fiscal years 2026 through 2035, plus CBO's Social Security solvency options. Each option's ten-year savings is spread across the projection as a share of GDP, then phased in on your schedule. CBO scores each option by itself, so overlapping picks overstate the total.

Growth and AI

CBO's baseline already assumes productivity grows about 1.5% a year. The growth panel adds an AI boost on top, phased in over the years you choose. Extra output is taxed at the going revenue share, while only a small slice of program spending follows it, which reproduces CBO's rule of thumb: productivity growth 0.1 point faster each year trims deficits by about $390 billion over ten years.

The scenarios span the published range. Acemoglu puts the ten-year gain near 1% of GDP. Penn Wharton finds 1.5% by 2035 with the annual boost peaking in 2032. Goldman Sachs sees 1.5 points a year of extra productivity growth once adoption is broad. Brynjolfsson and Korinek argue for a sustained lift of several points if AI accelerates research itself. Nobody knows which is right, so the slider is yours.

The side-effects summary

The "Ask Claude" button sends your settings and the computed results to Claude and asks for a summary of side effects in a fixed format. Nothing typed by a visitor is ever included, the server re-checks every number and option against its own list before building the request, and the answer is shown as plain text. Treat it as a first read, not a source.

The baseline

Defaults are set so the do-nothing path tracks CBO's February 2026 outlook: deficit near 5.8% of GDP in 2026 rising toward 6.7% in 2036, debt from 101% to about 120% of GDP, net interest from 3.3% to 4.6% of GDP. Every input is editable.

Why austerity costs growth

A dollar the government stops spending is a dollar someone stops receiving. The multiplier is how much GDP falls per dollar of consolidation in the year it lands. CBO's own range for purchases runs from about 0.5 to 2.5. Tax increases hit demand less because part of the money would have been saved.

The hit fades as the economy and the Fed adjust. Set the fade to zero to make it permanent.

How the feedback loop closes

Revenue is collected on the smaller economy, and automatic stabilizers add a little spending. The tool books that against the direct savings, then credits the interest you no longer pay on debt you no longer carry. Debt-to-GDP uses the smaller GDP in the denominator, so cuts can raise the ratio before they lower it.

Sources

A simulator, not a forecast. It shows how the pieces move together under assumptions you control.