Build a Budget From Your Philosophy, Then Defend It

Open the Build page on "Start from your values" (/build?values=deficit-hawk) and read the panel on the right. Every archetype is written as its own holder's steelman, in value language: no party, no politician. The panel shows five dials, a list of protected commitments, and the package those imply. Work through all five philosophies — deficit-hawk, small-government, growth-first, egalitarian, generational-steward — by editing the ?values= slug in the URL. For each one, record: (a) how many policies it selects, (b) what share of its own deficit target it reaches, (c) the single largest policy in the package. Then answer with the number of policies the *deficit-hawk* package contains. Nothing here needs an API key: the archetype path never calls a model.

A "protected" commitment is a veto, not a preference: no alignment score buys past it. The deficit-hawk philosophy protects middle-class rates and safety-net transfers, which removes every consumption-base raiser (the tariffs, the carbon tax), the employer-health-exclusion cap, and the ACA premium-credit repeal from the candidate set. In the panel, note the coverage of the deficit-hawk package. Then remove "Middle-class rates" from the Protected control and note it again. Enter the *increase* in coverage, in percentage points. Every edit re-runs the selector with no model call — the package updates the moment you let go of the control.