Help Us Solve the Debt & Deficits Crisis | Q2 Essay Contest

“How does America escape its fiscal trap?”

Apr 20, 2026

Essay Contest Announcement

We are very excited to be running our third sprint at the Boyd Institute, and want to thank everyone who has followed us into this new sprint on debt and deficits in America. As we laid out in the topic announcement and our recent piece, the fiscal pressures accumulating in this country are as urgent as anything we could be working on, and today wanted to open the floor to you, the reader, once again.

With the success of our previous essay contest format in mind, we are running it back again this quarter with the same core structure but with one small change we’ll get to in a moment.

The question we are asking this time is:

“How does America escape its fiscal trap?”

This one is narrower than “problem-solving capacity,” but it is still plenty broad by design. You can come at it from any number of angles. Is the answer entitlement reform — and if so, what does a politically viable path look like? Is it tax policy, or the structure of the budgeting process itself? Would a fiscal commission with real teeth work where past ones have failed? Do we need constitutional debt brakes of the kind Switzerland and Germany have adopted? Or is the answer on the growth side — deregulation, immigration, productivity — such that we grow our way out rather than cut our way out? Is it something more radical still: a sovereign wealth fund, partial monetization, a rethinking of dollar privilege?

We’ll leave it to you to decide the angle you think is best. Many, many smart people have tried to address this problem before, and what we are looking for are bold, asymmetric ideas that actually move the needle — not another restatement of the CBO baseline.

One Small Change

As we did last quarter, we are asking people to publish their articles on their own Substacks as soon as they are ready, and we will reward the best essays at the end of the sprint. The reasoning is the same as before: information silos are bad, and publishing in public lets everyone iterate and learn from one another. As with last time, we will only allow one final submission per applicant, but if you want to update or even write an entirely new essay after reading someone else’s work — or for any other reason — you are encouraged to do so up until the deadline.

The one change this time: if you would genuinely rather not publish on Substack, you may instead submit your essay to us as a PDF via the submission form.

That said, we strongly recommend the Substack route. The whole point of the format is to turn the contest into something like an online salon rather than a black box, and a PDF sitting in our inbox doesn’t do that. Publishing in public is how you bring other people into the conversation, how you get feedback before the deadline, and frankly how you build your own audience around ideas you clearly care about.

It is our promise that, whichever route you choose, if you submit something, we will read it, internalize it, and judge it on its merits.

In our last iteration, we awarded a total prize pool of $6,900, meaning eight honorariums. We expect our final payout this time to be roughly the same, so there is real money to be made for participants.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out via DMs, and we will be sure to respond with clarifications. Best of luck, and may the best essay(s) win!

For attribution we ask you put the following blurb at the top of your article:

“This article is part of The Boyd Institute’s quarterly policy sprint on the debt and deficit. To learn more about them and the work they do you or submit your own article click here".

Prizes and Recognition

Grand Prize: USD $2,500 cash, re-publication and promotion on our Substack, and the honorary title of Boyd Fellow for one year.
Second Prize (Runner-Up): USD $1,000 and re-publication/promotion on our Substack.
Third Prize (Runner-Up): USD $1,000 and re-publication/promotion on our Substack.
Additional Publication: We may offer a USD $300 honorarium to authors whose essays we choose to re-publish beyond the top three.

Eligibility

Human (not AI) entrants aged 18 or older are eligible — one essay per author.

The contest is open worldwide, but the focus of this contest is on identifying novel solutions for the United States.

Essays should either be (a) Published on the author’s personal Substack account, attributed to the Boyd Institute at the top of the submission, with the link shared via THIS Google Form; or (b) Submitted directly to us as a PDF attachment through the same Google Form. Substack publication is strongly preferred.

Submission Guidelines

Format: An article will be considered for the prize pool if it is either:

(Preferred) Published without a paywall on the author’s personal Substack account before the deadline, with an acknowledgment at the top of the article that it was created as part of the Boyd Institute essay contest; or
Submitted as a PDF attachment via the Google Form before the deadline.

In either case, the author must submit the Google Form HERE with a link (or PDF), acceptance of terms and conditions, and other contact information.

Language: Submissions must be in English.

Original Work: Essays must be original and authored by the entrant.

AI Assistance Disclosure: If you use AI tools to brainstorm or edit your essay, briefly describe how you used them in a note attached to your Google Form submission. Fully AI-generated essays are not permitted.

Deadline: 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Monday, July 15th, 2026. Late entries will not be accepted. We will announce the winners and award prize money at the end of June.

Evaluation Criteria

Our judges will evaluate submissions based on:

Originality: How novel and creative is the idea? This is a gnarly challenge, and we need outside-the-box thinking!
Potential for Impact: If your idea were implemented, would it meaningfully address America’s debt and deficit trajectory? We are looking for ideas that substantially move the needle.
Actionability: Does the proposal offer a concrete and realistic path forward? Is it feasible within existing technological and/or political-economy constraints?
Clarity and Quality: Is the essay well organized and easy to follow? Is the proposal articulated persuasively for the general public, policymakers, and experts? While polished prose helps, we care most about the strength of your ideas.