The Fiscal Ship is an award-winning online game from the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings Institution and the Wilson Center’s Serious Games Initiative, letting players design their own U.S. federal budget.
Summary: Players start by choosing three governing values (like reducing inequality, fighting climate change, or shrinking government), then select from over 100 real tax and spending policies to build a budget plan that reflects those priorities while bringing the debt-to-GDP ratio down to a sustainable level. Using real Congressional Budget Office data, the game shows in real time how each choice moves the needle on debt and reveals that many popular “easy fixes” barely make a dent.
Big Idea: Budgeting isn’t just a spreadsheet exercise, it’s a values exercise. By making players commit to their priorities before choosing policies, the game shows that the hard part of fiscal policy isn’t the math, it’s confronting the real trade-offs between what you value and what you’re willing to give up to pay for it.
Playable Takeaway: Play the game and see what you take away.