W E T H E P E O P L E
We the
Elders
Your generation believes in leaving things better than you found them, and you did the work to make that true.
The debt works against that, because every year more of the country's money goes to paying for the past and less is left for the people coming after you.
You still have a say in what they receive. Candidates pay close attention to how your generation votes, so your name carries weight.
Where it shows up for you
Your grandchildren. The rate on their first federal college loan is set by law from what the government pays to borrow, and their first mortgage follows the same rates. By 2056, more than half of every federal tax dollar they pay is projected to go to interest.
Your check. The Social Security retirement fund runs short in the fourth quarter of 2032. After that it can pay 78 percent of scheduled benefits, which means a 22 percent cut to every check unless Congress changes the law first. A $2,000 check becomes $1,560. If you are 62 today, you will be 68.
Your hospital coverage. Medicare's hospital insurance fund runs short in 2033. After that, what it pays hospitals is cut by 11 percent, and the cut grows to 16 percent by 2040.
Congress has raised or suspended the debt limit every time the country has reached it. It is the most dependable thing Washington does.
You cannot leave the next generation less debt, but you can leave them a binding limit.
A trillion dollars a year, already spent
This year the country will pay about $1 trillion in interest on the debt. That is more than the entire military budget, and none of it buys anything new.
Picture what $1 trillion a year could do for the people you are leaving this country to, or how much of it could have stayed with the people who earned it. Whatever you pictured, that money is already spent, and next year's interest bill is projected to be bigger.
"I won't be here for the worst of it"
That may be true, but the people you raised will be here, and so will their children. Nobody is asking you to pay the debt down, and it is far too large for that. What we are asking for is a limit written into the Constitution, so that what your grandchildren inherit has a ceiling on it. You cannot leave them less debt than there already is, but you can leave them that limit.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page comes from the Social Security and Medicare trustees, the U.S. Treasury or the Congressional Budget Office, and each one is listed below. Dave Walker, a former Comptroller General of the United States, chairs this campaign.
The plan, briefly
A constitutional amendment that ties the debt to the size of the economy. You make it a condition of your vote, we match you to your district, and every candidate running there sees how many of their own voters have done the same.
What happens after you sign
We match you to your district and add you to the count. Any candidate who wants your vote will have to look at that number. We only share the count, never your information.
Sources
Social Security: Social Security Board of Trustees, 2026 Annual Report, June 9, 2026. ssa.gov/oact/trsum/
Medicare hospital fund: 2026 Medicare Trustees Report, cms.gov/oact/tr/2026. [VERIFY the 11 and 16 percent figures in the report itself]
Student loan rates: U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, 2026 to 2027 Direct Loan rates.
More than 50 cents by 2056: Brookings, Spending, Taxes, and Deficits: A Book of Charts, April 2026, page 79.
About $1 trillion in interest, more than the military: Congressional Budget Office; U.S. Treasury, Combined Statement.