Congressional scorecard · updated 2026-09-02
Show the slides. Post the stack.
GOP. Democrats. DSA — Brookings counted 282 DSA-endorsed names on 2026 ballots. Each column owes the country a budget, a pay-for, and the whole bill — not the paragraph they cut for television. Full time or resign. Independent. No PAC. Not a call to violence.
The Whole File Pledge
How this actually happens
There is no national referendum on a budget in this Constitution. Article I already gave the purse to Congress. The American people’s approval is the election, the House rules on day one, and a statute they already wrote and ignore. You do not need a new ministry. You need the layover they waive, the twelve bills they skip, and a signature on the pledge below — then you score who refused.
- Twelve appropriations bills by October 1. No omnibus. No continuing resolution as the plan.
- The full text of every spending bill and every reconciliation bill posted, searchable, 72 hours before any vote — CBO score and Joint Committee on Taxation tables attached. No managers’ amendment after midnight.
- Prime time, same night, GOP / Democrats / DSA: a deck of the policy and the pay-for. Medicare for all names the money. GOP names how it will not block the agenda the country voted. Anyone who will not show the slides agrees, on camera, to go home.
- The floor is a full-time job. In session means in the building. Call time is not the work. Work the hours or resign.
- Vow to stop selling the neighbor as the enemy. Debate the statute. The jersey is not the job.
The tools that already exist: House and Senate rules (a majority can rewrite them on January 3). The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 — twelve bills by October 1. The 72-hour / layover rule they routinely waive. CBO and JCT, paid for by you, required to post before the gavel, not after. Discharge petition. Primary. Article I, Section 5 — punish and expel. November 3. A constitutional amendment would be required only if you want a nationwide yes/no on the budget itself. Until then the people approve by firing the employee who hid the stack.
| If they hold Congress | GOP | Democrats | DSA program |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the ballot ↗ | The line that cut what you pay (TCJA) and, this term, actually closed the border. Ugly sentences on tape we already print. They still owe you twelve bills by October 1. | A party with a line on every federal race. DSA-endorsed names sit on that line in dozens of districts. The D is how they get in the door. | Brookings: 282 endorsed candidates this cycle. Not a think tank. Names. Primaries already won and lost. If they hold a seat, the 2026 program is not a PDF. It is a vote. |
| Show the slides ↗ | Prime time. Every network that takes a public license. A deck: how you will not block the Trump agenda the country voted. Line by line. Dollar by dollar. Anyone who will not sign it agrees, on camera, to go home. | Same night. Same chair. Medicare for all, or whatever you renamed it this week: the slide that says where the money comes from. Urban Institute already put extra federal cost near $32–34 trillion over ten years. If your number is different, show the arithmetic. Slogans are not a budget. | Your 2026 program is already a pamphlet. Put it on a slide with a pay-for. Cato’s high-end read of the stack does not fit in a $40T country. If that is unfair, bring a better table. Compassion without a ledger is a campaign, not a government. |
| Full time or resign ↗ | You took $7.258 billion for FY2026 (P.L. 119-37). The floor sits fewer days than a school year. Call time is not the job. In session means in the building. No board, no book tour as the main event. Work the hours or leave the chair. | Same payroll. Same part-time gavel. You do not get to lecture the country about ‘essential workers’ from a chamber that keeps banker’s hours and a fundraiser’s calendar. Full time or resign. | You want the state to run health, housing, and the largest firms. Then you of all people do not get a part-time legislature. Show up every weekday or take your name off the ballot. |
| Stop the split ↗ | Vow, on the same broadcast: no more neighbor-as-enemy copy. Debate the statute. Ugly sentences already on tape stay on the record. The jersey is not the job. | Same vow. MRC logged 92% negative coverage of the 2025 term in the first hundred days on the big three. You do not get to outsource the split to a chyron and call it journalism. Work for the country, not the clip. | Same vow. ‘Abolish ICE’ as a chant is not a hearing. If you want the program, bring it in daylight, not as a purity test that turns a neighbor into a fascist for asking who pays. |
| The whole file ↗ | Twelve appropriations bills, on time. Full text, CBO score, and every table posted 72 hours before a vote. No omnibus. Every reconciliation print in full — not a one-pager the whip emails at 2 a.m. Waive the layover and you failed the job. | Same. You wrote the 1974 Budget Act and have not finished a budget on time since Clinton. The narrative is the clip. The file is the stack. Post the stack or leave the chair. | Same. A replacement constitution does not get a secret annex. If the people cannot read the pay-for, it is not a mandate. It is a pamphlet. |
| Taxes ↗ | They cut the tax. TCJA, 2017. You kept more of the check. That is the one thing a working person can feel. JCT: the cut also punched about $1.5 trillion out of ten-year revenue. Honest: lower tax, bigger hole. Still the only column that lowered the rate. | They campaign to raise the top rates and to let pieces of TCJA die. The Inflation Reduction Act added a 15% corporate minimum. The direction is up. | Workers Deserve More: public ownership of the largest firms. That is not a rate. That is taking the company. |
| Debt — $40T on the meter ↗ | Treasury: $40 trillion, August 2026. Just Facts, votes 2009–2022: the average House Republican voted to raise spending $1.6 trillion. Senate Republicans $5.7 trillion. They cut the tax. They still failed October 1. They did not vote like the other column. | Same $40T. Just Facts: average House Democrat voted to raise spending $19.9 trillion (2009–2022). Senate Democrats $14.0 trillion. The term table below is Treasury/OMB with who held both chambers. Nixon/Ford: Republican Oval, Democratic Congress, +$345B. GHW Bush: same pattern, +$1.49T. The purse is Congress. | Cato on their program: Medicare-for-all-style $40–75 trillion over ten years on a $40 trillion meter. Reparations, jobs guarantee, free housing. High end toward $200 trillion. Not remotely possible. |
| What they promise ↗ | Extend the tax cut. Keep the border closed. No replacement constitution. | Raise the top rates. Let pieces of TCJA expire. The clip will not mention the $40T. | Medicare for all, free at the point of service. Reparations. Abolish ICE. New constitution. Cato: the bill does not fit in the country. https://www.cato.org/blog/who-will-pay-democratic-socialisms-200-trillion-cost |
| The economy ↗ | Capitalism with a tax cut. Trucks still roll. That is how a country eats. | Capitalism with more of the state in the annex. Still not public ownership of the firm. | Public ownership of the largest firms. That is not a tweak. That is the end of the system that stocks the store. Capitalism is not a vibe. It is the only machine that has fed this many people. Their pamphlet does not. |
| Border ↗ | This term: encounters at a 50-year low. Pew. Remain in Mexico, wall, detention. That is the file, not a feeling. | FY2022–2024: record encounters. Parole programs. Catch-and-release as practice. Cities paid the hotel bill. That is a policy, not a weather event. | Abolish ICE. Amnesty regardless of status. Their 2026 program. Printed. |
| The charter ↗ | No published plan to throw out Article I. They still hide the twin law in the annex. | They treat the document as a costume — Speech or Debate on a Sunday show, insurrection on a chyron, no § 2383. | Draft a new constitution. Abolish the Senate. Subordinate the Court. A democratic socialist republic. Their words. |
| What you will hear ↗ | A clip of an ugly sentence. We already print the ones on tape. | MRC: 92% negative coverage of the 2025 term in the first hundred days on ABC/CBS/NBC. Six seconds. A villain. Almost never a statute. | Compassion as the caption. The program in the annex. |
$7.258 billion · a part-time floor ↗
What you pay the legislative branch in FY2026 — Public Law 119-37 / CRS R48612. Salary ($174,500) is the decoy. The machine is seven billion dollars. The chamber sits fewer days than a school year. Full time or resign.
Total $7.258B. Member pay is a rounding error inside the House and Senate lines. Eighteen aides, district rent, travel, a gym, a pension after five years — CRS RL30064 and R40962.
The pamphlet does not fit in the country ↗
Medicare for all and reparations are not a vibe. They are invoices. The country already runs a $1.9 trillion deficit on $5.6 trillion of receipts with $40 trillion on the meter (CBO FY2026; Treasury August 2026). Stack the pamphlet on that and you are not reforming a budget. You are proposing to break the currency, the bond market, or the republic. Anyone who sells it as affordable is not confused. They are choosing the wreck.
$5.6T
Federal receipts, FY2026 (CBO)
$7.4T
Federal outlays, FY2026 (CBO)
$1.9T
Deficit, FY2026 (CBO)
~$32T
U.S. GDP (CBO: outlays 23.3% of GDP)
$40.0T
Gross federal debt (Treasury, Aug 2026)
| Invoice | Low | High | vs all federal taxes | vs the economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medicare for All — extra federal (10 years) ↗ | $32–34T (Urban Institute) | $40–75T (Cato, M4A-style) | 6–13 years of every federal tax dollar at CBO’s 2026 receipts ($5.6T) | More than one full year of U.S. GDP (~$32T) on the low Urban extra-federal figure alone |
| Reparations ↗ | $10–12T (Darity / Brookings); $16T on 2022 SCF (Darity 2026) | $13.5–28T (Cato on the DSA stack) | 2–5 years of every federal tax dollar | A third to nearly a full year of the entire economy — on top of Medicare for All, not instead of it |
| Federal jobs guarantee (DSA) ↗ | $4.4T / 10 years (Cato low) | $60.4T / 10 years (Cato high) | 0.8–11 years of every federal tax dollar | A fourth line on a meter that is already past $40T |
| DSA program stacked (10 years) ↗ | $71T new federal spending (Cato) | $212T (Cato high) | 13–38 years of every federal tax dollar. There are only 10 years in the window. | Cato: government share of GDP in a range that does not leave a private economy standing |
Combined on the low Urban + Darity figures: about $44 trillion in new federal claims. Combined on Cato’s M4A + reparations highs: about $100 trillion — before the jobs guarantee and the rest of the DSA stack. Ten-year receipts at today’s $5.6T rate are $56 trillion for the entire government: Defense, Social Security, Medicare as it exists, interest on the $40T, and the lights. The pamphlet eats the government and then the country. A candidate who will not show a pay-for that survives this table is not offering health care or justice. They are offering insolvency. That is how a nation is destroyed without a shot. Out of office. Off the ballot. Independent. No PAC. Not a call to violence.
Congress holds the purse ↗
Gross federal debt by term. Treasury Debt to the Penny and OMB historical tables. Who held both chambers: Senate Historical Office; House History. $40.03T as of August 20, 2026. Nixon and Ford were Republican presidents under a Democratic Congress — the $345B still posted. GHW Bush the same: $1.49T, Dem both. The Oval is not the purse.
| President | Debt added | Both chambers |
|---|---|---|
| FDR (D) 1933–45 | +$237B | Dem both (entire term) |
| Truman (D) 1945–53 | +$7B | Dem most; GOP both 1947–49 |
| Eisenhower (R) 1953–61 | +$25B | Split. GOP both 53–55; Dem both 55–61 |
| JFK / LBJ (D) 1961–69 | +$63B | Dem both (entire) |
| Nixon / Ford (R) 1969–77 | +$345B | Dem both (entire) |
| Carter (D) 1977–81 | +$295B | Dem both |
| Reagan (R) 1981–89 | +$1.86T | Split most; Dem both 87–89 |
| GHW Bush (R) 1989–93 | +$1.49T | Dem both |
| Clinton (D) 1993–01 | +$1.46T | Dem both 93–95; GOP both 95–01 |
| GW Bush (R) 2001–09 | +$6.1T | Mixed; GOP both 03–07 |
| Obama (D) 2009–17 | +$8.0T | Dem both 09–11; GOP both 15–17 |
| Trump 1 (R) 2017–21 | +$7.8T | GOP both 17–19; split 19–21 |
| Biden (D) 2021–25 | +$8.5T | Dem both 21–23; split 23–25 |
| Trump 2 (R) 2025– | +$3.8T (to Aug 2026) | GOP both |
Treasury — Debt to the Penny. Nominal gross debt, not inflation-adjusted. FDR’s 1,081% is a small base, not a small government. Inauguration-to-inauguration, Obama is closer to +$9.3T than +$8.0T — we left the compiled row and note the range. Trump 1 +$7.8T, Biden +$8.4–8.5T, Trump 2 +$3.8T ($36.2T in January 2025 to $40.0T in August 2026) match Treasury. Nixon/Ford and GHW Bush: Republican Oval, Democratic Congress — that column is the point.
DSA does not need a stronger foot in Congress. Two hundred eighty-two names is already a beachhead. November 3: show up. This is a republic. Their replacement charter is not welcome. A We change a cell when a vote or a Treasury table changes the file. Honest is the whole point.