The Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s Solutions Initiative brings together leading policy organizations from across the political spectrum to develop plans to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability. The 2024 Solutions Initiative showcased seven comprehensive plans to put America on a stronger, more sustainable fiscal path, allowing readers to explore, compare and contrast different approaches to our debt.

The Fiscal Ship, developed by the Hutchins Center at the Brookings Institution and the Wilson Center, makes the federal budget more accessible and engaging by challenging players to put the budget — the ship, as it were — on a sustainable course. Brookings has developed a teaching tool for using the game in classrooms, and the Council for Economic Education has developed a module for using the Fiscal Ship in the context of analyzing political platforms.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget developed the Debt Fixer, an interactive tool to demonstrate the budget trade-offs and decisions involved in stabilizing debt as a share of GDP. How would you handle the nation’s finances if you were in charge?

The Reformer, developed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, is an interactive tool focused on solutions to fix Social Security. The Reformer allows users to choose from a number of options to modify Social Security tax and benefit levels in order to close the program’s 75-year shortfall and keep it sustainable for future generations.

The Federal Balancing Act is a free interactive online tool shows the long-term impacts of today’s policy choices. Simulation users can increase or decrease federal spending and revenue across several budget categories — from veterans’ benefits to taxes on corporate profits — to see both the immediate budget impact and the projected impact 25 years out. With additional information offered throughout, the simulation builds understanding and promotes constructive conversations on our fiscal outlook.