About us · Legal notice · Privacy

About us

Civic Lab designs educational and civic projects to help everyone understand big public choices and make up their own mind.

“You Make the Budget” is a free, ad-free simulator of the U.S. federal budget. It takes no position. Its measures are chosen to cover, for each item, the range of possible choices, not to represent parties: they come from proposals actually costed by public institutions, members of Congress from both parties, administrations and think tanks, with their sources and limits. The starting amounts come from the Congressional Budget Office. Each measure shows the source of its estimate; those based on a simple calculation from official figures are flagged as “tool estimate”. When an estimate comes from a party or an organization, the source simply says so: you choose a measure for what it does, not for who proposes it. These are orders of magnitude, not official forecasts.

The project is independent: it is not linked to any party, campaign, union or government agency. It is funded by voluntary contributions from its users.

An error, a questionable source, a presentation that seems biased? Tell us, with the “Report an error” button on the site or at the address in the Contact section.

Legal notice

Publisher

The site is published on a non-commercial basis by Civic Lab, an independent citizen project.

Contact: contact (at) youmakethebudget.org

Hosting

Netlify, Inc. — 512 2nd Street, Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States — netlify.com

Intellectual property

The site's text, code and visuals belong to the publisher. Budget data come from the public sources cited for each measure and remain the property of their authors. You may share the results and videos you create with the simulator, crediting “You Make the Budget”.

Liability

The tool is provided for educational purposes, without any guarantee of accuracy or completeness. It is neither advice nor an official forecast. It is a beta version: errors may remain.

Privacy

The simulator does not track you

Your choices in the simulator stay in your browser. They are not sent to our servers. So that you don't lose them if the page reloads, they are kept in your browser during your visit, then deleted when you close the tab. The site uses no cookies, no audience measurement tools and no advertising. Videos are created on your device.

What we collect, only if you ask us to

• Report an error: your message, the measure concerned and, if you give it, your email address so we can reply. Purpose: correcting the tool. Kept for as long as it takes to handle your message.
• Feedback on how clear the explanations are: your answer and, if you write one, your comment. No personal data is requested. Purpose: improving the explanations. Kept for 12 months at most.
• Sign-up for future tools: your email address, with the date of your consent. Purpose: telling you about Civic Lab's next projects. Kept until you unsubscribe. We never sell or share your address.

These data go through the host's form service (Netlify, United States) and are read by the publisher.

Third-party services

• Host (Netlify): like any host, it receives visitors' IP addresses to serve the pages and protect the site, in short-lived technical logs. The site loads no other third-party service: fonts are hosted on the site itself.
• Stripe: if you choose to contribute, payment takes place on Stripe's secure pages. We never see or store your card number. Stripe sends us your name, email and the amount. See Stripe's privacy policy.

Your rights

You can ask to access, correct or delete your data, object to its use, or withdraw your consent at any time, by writing to contact (at) youmakethebudget.org.

Voluntary contributions

The simulator is free. You can support it with a one-time or monthly contribution. It is voluntary, gives no right to anything in return and is not tax-deductible. A monthly contribution stops whenever you decide, from the subscription management link you receive by email. Contributions also fund new tools, starting with budget simulators for U.S. states. For any question, see the Contact section.