National Debt and Deficit Requirements

Voice to Congress - National Debt and Deficit - SMART Metric-Informed Requirements Baseline - Prepared May 23, 2026

Review Boundary: This page now reflects a metric-informed SMART requirements baseline for National Debt and Deficit. Requirement statements have been reviewed for specificity, measurability, testability, traceability, duplicates, sub-issue coverage, and candidate metric fit. This page still does not activate issue scoring, member scoring, public grades, leaderboards, legislative mapping, or legislative penalties. Those steps remain later phases.

Review / Approval Status

This table should remain visible on high-level National Debt and Deficit pages. It summarizes the current release boundary and tells reviewers, testers, and contributors which work products are current, which are historical, and which phases remain disabled.

Page / Work Area	Current Status	Review Action	Notes / Release Boundary
Requirements Home	Metric-informed baseline accepted	Requirement statements reviewed for specificity, measurability, testability, traceability, duplicates, sub-issue coverage, and candidate metric fit.	Accepted as the current SMART requirements baseline for the next non-scoring phases. No issue grade, member grade, leaderboard, or legislative penalty is enabled.
Requirements-to-Metrics Integrity Review	Completed	Use the review results to confirm that each requirement is clear, concise, complete, and supported by an associated candidate metric, proxy metric, source review item, or traceability basis.	The review produced improved requirement wording for reviewers, testers, and contributors. It supports later traceability work but does not approve scoring.
Metrics Home	Candidate phase handoff ready	Candidate metric values, periods, trends, limitations, and source notes have been reviewed for candidate display use.	29 candidate display rows approved; 3 additional review-only metric IDs retained; blockers 0; source-method review needed 0; scoring disabled.
Metrics Source Inspection Review	Complete for candidate phase	Retain source notes, limitations, and inspection results for the later data dictionary and source registry phase.	No current source-method blockers remain for candidate display. Future scoring eligibility will require separate source registry and traceability approval.
Candidate Cache Review	Approved for candidate display	Use as candidate/context display evidence only. Do not treat candidate cache approval as scoring approval.	Candidate cache work supports transparency and public understanding. It remains separate from later scored metrics, report cards, rollups, and legislative accountability products.
Legislative Mapping	Planned / not started	Begin only after the data dictionary, source registry, and requirements-to-metrics traceability work products are approved.	Later maps bills to requirements, metrics, CBO/JCT evidence, PAYGO/offsets, spending, revenue, and debt impact.
Report Card	Not started for NDD	Wait until bill-to-metric mapping and promotion gates are approved.	No National Debt and Deficit issue grade or member grade is enabled.

Archive note: The prior 010 - Validation Review folder has been manually archived and is no longer part of the active requirements review flow. The controlling baseline is this Requirements Home page, the completed requirements-to-metrics integrity review, and the approved candidate/context metrics handoff. Historical validation material should be retained for audit reference only.

1. Executive Summary

The National Debt and Deficit issue exists to help citizens understand whether federal fiscal policy is sustainable, transparent, and accountable. The issue should not be reduced to a single headline number. It should evaluate debt burden, annual deficits, primary balance, interest burden, revenue adequacy, outlay discipline, trust fund solvency, long-term fiscal risk, and legislative responsibility.

The current baseline incorporates the requirements-to-metrics integrity review. Each requirement is intended to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant or realistic, and trackable through candidate metrics, proxy metrics, source evidence, review gates, or future legislative evidence.

2. SMART Requirement Standard

SMART Element	How it is applied in this issue
Specific	Each requirement identifies one fiscal control, data, presentation, or traceability function.
Measurable	Each requirement should trace to a metric, proxy metric, source review item, or legislative evidence category.
Attainable	The required evidence should be realistic to collect from official or authoritative sources.
Relevant / Realistic	The requirement must belong in National Debt and Deficit and support fiscal accountability.
Trackable	The requirement should support recurring updates, observation periods, history, and later bill-to-metric mapping.

3. Current Phase Summary

Field	Status
Phase	Requirements baseline after metric-informed integrity review
Issue Code	NDD
Status	SMART requirements baseline accepted for the next non-scoring phases
Requirement Count	40 total requirements
Candidate Metrics	29 candidate display rows approved; 3 review-only metric IDs retained
Source-Method Review	No current source-method review blockers for candidate display
Scoring	Not enabled
Member Report Cards	Not enabled
Issue Grade	Not enabled
Next Phase	Prepare data dictionary, source registry, and requirements-to-metrics traceability work products before legislative mapping or report-card scoring.

4. Metric-Informed Clarification Improvements

Improvement	What changed
SMART integrity	Requirement statements were reviewed for specificity, measurability, testability, traceability, duplicates, and sub-issue coverage.
Metric fit	Requirement wording was refined so reviewers and testers can more clearly connect each requirement to a candidate metric, proxy metric, source review item, or future traceability evidence.
Concise wording	Several statements were tightened to reduce ambiguity while preserving the original policy intent.
Candidate-only boundary	The page continues to make clear that candidate metrics support transparency and public understanding but do not yet score Congress.
Next-phase readiness	The requirements baseline is ready to support data dictionary, source registry, and requirements-to-metrics traceability work before legislative mapping or report-card scoring.

5. Scope

The National Debt and Deficit issue shall cover the federal fiscal condition and the legislative actions that materially affect it. The initial requirements scope includes:

Debt sustainability and debt-to-GDP context.
Annual deficit measurement, primary balance, receipts, outlays, and root cause analysis support.
Interest burden and debt service pressure.
Mandatory, discretionary, emergency, and supplemental spending pressure.
Trust fund solvency and long-term fiscal gap.
Fiscal transparency, data confidence, source confidence, and legislative accountability.

6. Requirement Categories

Category	Purpose	Count
NDD-FUN	Functional fiscal capabilities the issue module must provide.	16
NDD-PER	Performance, quality, and presentation controls that prevent misleading conclusions.	8
NDD-DATA	Data, source, cache, history, freshness, projection, and confidence requirements.	8
NDD-TRC	Traceability requirements connecting requirements to metrics, bills, evidence, report cards, and public action tools.	8

7. Verification Methods

Method	Meaning for Voice to Congress
Inspection	Review page, CSV, source registry, cache file, or evidence record for required fields and structure.
Analysis	Evaluate whether values, trend windows, evidence categories, or mappings are logically correct and like-to-like.
Demonstration	Show that the page, link, evidence drilldown, or review gate works as intended.
Test	Run a script, page refresh, cache build, or validation check and verify expected output.

8. Requirements Catalog - SMART Compact Draft

Status values on this table are draft review statuses. They are not scoring approvals. Requirement approval should occur only after human review and metric feasibility review.

Compact layout: Requirement ID and statement are combined; SMART focus and verification are combined; acceptance evidence and candidate metric family are combined; legislative impact and status are combined.

Requirement	SMART Focus / Verification	Acceptance Evidence / Candidate Metrics	Legislative Impact / Status
NDD-FUN-001 (Functional) Debt Sustainability Measurement The issue module shall measure federal debt sustainability using debt held by the public as percent of GDP, gross federal debt as percent of GDP, nominal federal debt, and long-term debt projections when available, so users can compare debt growth with economic growth over time.	SMART: Measure sustainability using level, ratio, trend, and projection evidence. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Approved narrative and metric mapping showing debt level, debt-to-GDP, trend, and long-term projection coverage. Candidate metrics: Debt held by public as % GDP; gross federal debt; CBO long-term debt projection	Legislative: Debt; long-term fiscal impact; fiscal projections Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-002 (Functional) Annual Deficit Measurement and Trend Control The issue module shall measure the annual federal deficit or surplus using official fiscal-year data, including dollar amount, percent of GDP, federal receipts, federal outlays, observation period, and like-to-like trend change, so users can evaluate movement toward or away from budget balance.	SMART: Measure annual deficit control with deficit, receipts, outlays, trend, and observation period. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Requirement maps to deficit level, deficit as % GDP, revenue, outlays, and primary deficit/surplus metrics. Candidate metrics: Annual deficit/surplus; deficit as % GDP; receipts; outlays	Legislative: Revenue; outlays; deficit increase/decrease Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-003 (Functional) Primary Deficit Root Cause Separation The issue module shall distinguish primary deficit or surplus from total deficit by separately reporting net interest outlays, receipts, program outlays, and the resulting primary balance when reliable source data are available.	SMART: Separate current policy drivers from accumulated interest costs. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Candidate metric catalog includes primary deficit/surplus or a documented proxy if an official source is selected later. Candidate metrics: Primary deficit/surplus; net interest outlays; deficit excluding net interest	Legislative: Program spending; revenue changes; interest exclusion Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-004 (Functional) Debt-to-GDP Fiscal Capacity Context The issue module shall show debt-to-GDP measures beside nominal dollar amounts when presenting federal debt so users can evaluate fiscal burden relative to economic capacity.	SMART: Prevent nominal-only debt interpretation. Verification: Inspection / Analysis	Evidence: Debt-to-GDP metric family is represented in the candidate metric catalog and linked to sustainability analysis. Candidate metrics: Debt held by public as % GDP; gross debt as % GDP	Legislative: Debt; GDP; macroeconomic capacity Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-005 (Functional) Interest Burden Measurement The issue module shall measure federal debt-service pressure using net interest outlays, net interest as percent of GDP, and net interest as percent of federal receipts when available.	SMART: Track affordability of debt service. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Interest burden requirement maps to net interest outlays, interest/revenue, and interest/GDP metric families. Candidate metrics: Net interest outlays; net interest as % revenue; net interest as % GDP	Legislative: Interest cost; Treasury borrowing; debt service Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-006 (Functional) Revenue Adequacy Measurement The issue module shall measure federal revenue adequacy using receipts as percent of GDP, receipts as percent of outlays, and like-to-like receipt trend changes so users can evaluate whether revenue is sufficient to support enacted spending commitments.	SMART: Measure revenue capacity and trend. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Revenue metric families are included and later mapped to bills affecting taxes, fees, credits, deductions, enforcement, or collections. Candidate metrics: Receipts as % GDP; receipts growth; revenue adequacy context	Legislative: Revenue; taxes; credits; collections; enforcement Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-007 (Functional) Outlay Discipline Measurement The issue module shall measure federal outlay discipline using outlays as percent of GDP, outlays as percent of receipts, spending-composition shares, and like-to-like trend changes so users can identify whether spending pressure is improving or worsening.	SMART: Measure spending level, affordability, and trend. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Outlay and spending-composition metric families are represented. Candidate metrics: Outlays as % GDP; mandatory share; discretionary share; net interest share	Legislative: Appropriations; mandatory spending; discretionary spending; authorizations Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-008 (Functional) Mandatory Spending Pressure The issue module shall identify mandatory spending pressure using mandatory outlays, mandatory outlays as percent of total outlays, mandatory outlays as percent of GDP, and related long-term drivers when reliable source data are available.	SMART: Separate mandatory spending pressure from other spending. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Metric catalog includes mandatory spending share or equivalent official-source measure. Candidate metrics: Mandatory spending as % outlays; mandatory spending as % GDP; trust fund projections	Legislative: Mandatory spending; entitlement changes; benefit formulas Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-009 (Functional) Discretionary Spending Pressure The issue module shall identify discretionary spending pressure using discretionary outlays, discretionary outlays as percent of total outlays, discretionary outlays as percent of GDP, and like-to-like trend changes when reliable source data are available.	SMART: Separate discretionary spending pressure from mandatory and interest costs. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Metric catalog includes discretionary spending share and later source options for defense/non-defense context. Candidate metrics: Discretionary spending as % outlays; discretionary spending as % GDP	Legislative: Appropriations; defense; non-defense discretionary Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-010 (Functional) Emergency and Supplemental Spending Visibility The issue module shall identify emergency, supplemental, and other non-routine fiscal actions when reliable evidence is available and shall show their estimated effect on outlays, deficits, debt, or fiscal-year totals when such estimates exist.	SMART: Make non-routine spending visible and traceable. Verification: Inspection / Analysis	Evidence: Candidate logic includes an emergency/supplemental context metric or evidence field. Candidate metrics: Emergency/supplemental outlays; supplemental appropriations impact	Legislative: Emergency designation; supplemental appropriations; disaster relief Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-011 (Functional) Trust Fund Solvency Measurement The issue module shall track major federal trust fund solvency risks using official trustee or federal source evidence, including projected depletion dates, balance trends, or solvency status where available.	SMART: Track fiscal risks embedded in trust funds. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Candidate metric catalog includes Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report measures. Candidate metrics: Social Security trust fund depletion date; Medicare HI depletion date	Legislative: Trust funds; payroll taxes; benefits; Medicare; Social Security Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-012 (Functional) Intergenerational Fiscal Burden The issue module shall support intergenerational fiscal-burden analysis using rising debt, interest burden, unfunded commitments, trust fund solvency, and long-term fiscal-gap evidence when reliable projection sources are available.	SMART: Connect present policy to future fiscal burden. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Requirement traces to long-term debt projection, trust fund solvency, and fiscal gap measures. Candidate metrics: Long-term debt projection; fiscal gap; trust fund solvency	Legislative: Long-term obligations; benefit cuts; tax increases; debt roll-forward Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-013 (Functional) Long-Term Fiscal Gap Visibility The issue module shall present long-term fiscal-gap, debt-path, or fiscal-health projection evidence from authoritative sources when available and shall clearly label projections separately from observed historical data.	SMART: Keep long-term fiscal risk visible without mixing projections with actuals. Verification: Analysis	Evidence: Requirement maps to CBO long-term budget projections and GAO fiscal health evidence. Candidate metrics: CBO long-term debt projection; long-term fiscal gap; GAO fiscal health indicators	Legislative: Long-term spending/revenue; actuarial balance Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-014 (Functional) Fiscal Transparency and Data Confidence Before a National Debt and Deficit metric is used for public interpretation, the issue module shall disclose its source, observation period, update date, limitation note, and review or confidence status.	SMART: Ensure users can judge source quality and limitations. Verification: Inspection / Demonstration	Evidence: Public page and review files include source, limitation, review status, and confidence fields. Candidate metrics: Fiscal transparency/data confidence; source completeness; estimate availability	Legislative: CBO estimate; JCT estimate; OMB statement; Treasury data Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-015 (Functional) Legislative Fiscal Accountability The issue module shall support legislative fiscal accountability by mapping relevant bills, amendments, votes, sponsorships, and official fiscal estimates to the requirements and metric families they plausibly affect.	SMART: Connect congressional action to fiscal outcomes. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Requirements catalog contains legislative impact fields and review gates for later bill-to-metric mapping. Candidate metrics: Bill fiscal impact classification; CBO/JCT availability; member activity evidence	Legislative: Bills; sponsorship; cosponsorship; votes; committee action Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-FUN-016 (Functional) Cross-Issue Fiscal Classification The issue module shall classify cross-issue fiscal effects for bills that also affect healthcare, housing, defense, education, cost of living, or other top issues, while preserving the National Debt and Deficit impact when the bill affects revenue, outlays, debt, interest, trust funds, or fiscal transparency.	SMART: Avoid losing fiscal effects when bills also belong to another issue. Verification: Inspection / Analysis	Evidence: Traceability rules include direct, indirect, cross-issue, uncertain, and not-applicable classifications. Candidate metrics: Cross-issue mapping; fiscal impact category	Legislative: Healthcare; housing; tax; defense; disaster; economic policy Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-001 (Performance) Objective Fiscal Indicator Standard The issue module shall use neutral, source-based fiscal indicator names, trend descriptions, and release-status language, and shall avoid partisan, ideological, or unsupported labels.	SMART: Maintain objective public presentation. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Each candidate metric has a source, observation period, limitation note, and direction of improvement. Candidate metrics: All core fiscal metric families	Legislative: All legislative fiscal categories Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-002 (Performance) Like-to-Like Trend Window Standard The issue module shall calculate trend and change values using like-to-like observation periods, including fiscal year to fiscal year, quarter to quarter, annual to annual, or projection window to projection window as applicable.	SMART: Prevent misleading trend comparisons. Verification: Analysis / Test	Evidence: Review checklist confirms trend windows align with the values in each metric row. Candidate metrics: Deficit trend; debt/GDP trend; revenue/outlay trend; interest trend	Legislative: Any bill tied to trend claims Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-003 (Performance) Observation Period Disclosure The issue module shall display the observation period for each metric, including fiscal year, calendar year, quarter, month, date, or projection period as applicable.	SMART: Make timing clear and trackable. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Each metric row has a populated observation period and source-period note. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: All evidence mappings Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-004 (Performance) Direction of Improvement Disclosure Before a metric is promoted for public interpretation, the issue module shall document its direction of improvement as lower-is-better, higher-is-better, stable-is-better, or context-dependent.	SMART: Avoid arbitrary scoring direction. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Review CSV contains direction-of-improvement and reviewer approval field. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: All report-card uses Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-005 (Performance) No Premature Score or Grade The issue module shall not publish issue grades, member grades, active rollups, leaderboards, or scoring penalties until requirement review, metric validation, source review, trend logic, limitation review, and promotion gates are approved.	SMART: Protect accuracy before scoring. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Page/status field states Candidate / Review Only until approved. Candidate metrics: Rollup score; issue grade; member grade	Legislative: All member scoring activity Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-006 (Performance) Readable Public Presentation The issue module shall present requirements, metrics, limitations, and review status in a readable public format using concise headings, printable tables, consistent typography, and clear links to supporting review pages.	SMART: Keep the page usable by citizens and reviewers. Verification: Inspection / Demonstration	Evidence: Page uses simple headings, readable tables, and clear definitions without requiring live data calls. Candidate metrics: Public requirements page; candidate metrics page	Legislative: Public action tools; evidence pages Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-007 (Performance) Limitation Visibility The issue module shall display a limitation note for each candidate, review-only, or active metric so users understand source constraints, projection limits, revision risks, and interpretation cautions.	SMART: Prevent overstatement of metric precision. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Each candidate metric and bill evidence row includes limitation or uncertainty notes. Candidate metrics: All metric families; CBO/JCT availability	Legislative: Bills with missing or uncertain fiscal evidence Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-PER-008 (Performance) Review Gate Visibility The issue module shall display current review and approval status for requirements, source inspection, candidate caches, metrics pages, legislative mapping, and report-card readiness on high-level pages.	SMART: Keep workflow status visible and auditable. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Catalog includes status fields and later traceability IDs. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: All bill-to-metric mappings Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-001 (Data) Authoritative Source Registry The issue module shall maintain a source registry for each candidate metric identifying the official or authoritative source, dataset, series identifier, URL or reference, update cadence, limitations, automation readiness, and source-method review status.	SMART: Make source selection auditable. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Source registry CSV/page exists before candidate metrics are promoted. Candidate metrics: Treasury Fiscal Data; FRED; CBO; OMB; BEA; Trustees; GAO	Legislative: CBO/JCT/Treasury/OMB evidence Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-002 (Data) Local Cache and Page-Load Control The issue module shall load public metric pages from local cache files or server-generated fragments and shall not depend on live external API calls during normal page load.	SMART: Keep pages fast, reliable, and inspectable. Verification: Test / Inspection	Evidence: Generated JSON/HTML fragment files exist and page loads without API calls. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: Not applicable to bill mapping except evidence refresh Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-003 (Data) Metric History Preservation The issue module shall preserve metric cache history in append-only or versioned history files so value, period, source, limitation, and status changes can be reviewed over time.	SMART: Support trend review and audit history. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: History file is generated when metric refresh scripts are later introduced. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: Metric-to-bill trend support Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-004 (Data) Data Freshness and As-Of Date The issue module shall record last-refreshed date, source observation date or period, source retrieval status, and cache-build status for each cached metric.	SMART: Make freshness visible and testable. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Metric cache includes refresh and observation metadata fields. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: Evidence currency for bills/reports Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-005 (Data) Projection Data Separation The issue module shall clearly separate observed historical values from forecasts, estimates, projections, long-term scenarios, and review-only context metrics.	SMART: Prevent projections from being confused with actual data. Verification: Inspection / Analysis	Evidence: Metric rows identify observed vs. projected values and projection source. Candidate metrics: CBO long-term projection; trust fund projections; GAO fiscal gap	Legislative: Long-term bill impact estimates Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-006 (Data) CBO/JCT Fiscal Evidence Status The issue module shall record whether official CBO, JCT, Treasury, OMB, or other fiscal estimate evidence exists for each relevant bill when that evidence is needed for legislative mapping, metric interpretation, or scoring readiness.	SMART: Track official fiscal evidence availability. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Bill-to-metric mapping schema includes fiscal evidence status and source fields. Candidate metrics: Estimate availability metric; fiscal transparency measure	Legislative: CBO estimate; JCT estimate; OMB SAP; Treasury impact Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-007 (Data) Revision and Methodology Awareness The issue module shall identify metrics or sources subject to revisions, definitional changes, rebasing, or methodology changes when those changes may affect trend interpretation or like-to-like comparison over time.	SMART: Make changes in source methodology visible. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Cache/history design supports revisions and preserves prior reviewed records. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: Public and member report-card evidence Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-DATA-008 (Data) Data Confidence Rating The issue module shall assign a review status or confidence category to each candidate or review-only metric based on source authority, automation reliability, observation clarity, trend validity, limitation review, and source-method review status.	SMART: Support promotion decisions and public caution. Verification: Analysis / Inspection	Evidence: Candidate metrics include confidence/review fields but no active scoring. Candidate metrics: Fiscal transparency/data confidence; estimate coverage	Legislative: Bill evidence coverage; fiscal estimate reliability Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-001 (Traceability) Requirement-to-Metric Traceability The issue module shall trace each approved, candidate, or review-only requirement to one or more candidate metrics, proxy metrics, evidence-only assessments, or deferred review notes.	SMART: Ensure every requirement has an evaluation path. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Traceability seed file contains requirement ID to metric family mappings. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: N/A Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-002 (Traceability) Metric-to-Bill Impact Traceability The issue module shall support tracing each relevant bill to the metric family it may improve, worsen, affect indirectly, or affect with uncertain fiscal impact.	SMART: Connect legislation to measurable fiscal effects. Verification: Inspection / Analysis	Evidence: Bill mapping model includes impact type, evidence status, and metric family. Candidate metrics: All promoted fiscal metrics	Legislative: Revenue; spending; debt; interest; trust funds; transparency Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-003 (Traceability) Bill Fiscal Evidence Classification The issue module shall classify bill evidence by fiscal mechanism, including revenue, direct spending, discretionary authorization, appropriation, tax expenditure, debt impact, interest impact, trust fund impact, PAYGO or offset treatment, emergency designation, and transparency effect.	SMART: Support root cause analysis of bill impacts. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Bill evidence schema includes fiscal mechanism fields. Candidate metrics: All fiscal metric families	Legislative: All fiscal bill categories Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-004 (Traceability) Issue Report Card Readiness Trace The issue module shall not mark the National Debt and Deficit issue report card ready until requirements, metric promotion, source validation, bill mapping, scoring methodology, and public explanation rules have documented approval status.	SMART: Prevent premature issue grades. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Review checklist has explicit issue-report-card readiness gate. Candidate metrics: Core metrics only after promotion	Legislative: All issue-level legislative evidence Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-005 (Traceability) Member Report Card Readiness Trace The issue module shall not mark member report cards ready until member actions can be traced to bills, fiscal evidence, affected requirements, affected metrics, approved evidence rules, and approved scoring rules.	SMART: Prevent premature member grades. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Review checklist has explicit member-scoring readiness gate. Candidate metrics: Promoted legislative metrics only	Legislative: Sponsorship; cosponsorship; votes; committee activity Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-006 (Traceability) Public Explanation Traceability The issue module shall provide public explanations that trace major conclusions back to source data, metric definitions, requirement IDs, legislative evidence, review status, and limitation notes.	SMART: Make public conclusions inspectable. Verification: Demonstration / Inspection	Evidence: Page model includes fields for View Details / View Evidence links. Candidate metrics: All public metrics and grades after promotion	Legislative: Evidence pages; bill pages; member pages Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-007 (Traceability) Action Tool Traceability The issue module shall link letters, call scripts, and other public action tools to the approved requirements, metrics, evidence, and bill mappings that support the requested action.	SMART: Ensure advocacy tools are evidence-based. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Action content model includes requirement ID and issue concern fields. Candidate metrics: Relevant metric families	Legislative: Letters; calls; bill positions Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review
NDD-TRC-008 (Traceability) Review and Promotion Separation The issue module shall keep draft, candidate, review-only, promoted, approved, and scored materials clearly separated so users, reviewers, testers, and administrators can distinguish evidence gathering from public grading.	SMART: Separate review workflow from public release. Verification: Inspection	Evidence: Lifecycle statuses are present in requirements, metrics, and promotion checklists. Candidate metrics: All metric families	Legislative: All report-card workflows Draft - SMART Clarified V3 Review

9. Approval Guidance

Reviewers should mark each requirement as keep, edit, split, merge, defer, or reject. A requirement can remain important even if it is not immediately metric-supported; however, it should not be used for scoring unless it has a reliable metric, proxy metric, or approved evidence rule.

Review Decision	Meaning
Keep	The requirement is clear, relevant, and traceable enough for candidate baseline use.
Edit	The requirement is useful but needs wording, metric trace, evidence, or scope refinement.
Split	The requirement contains more than one control function and should become multiple requirements.
Merge	The requirement overlaps another requirement and should be consolidated.
Defer	The requirement is important but not ready for current metric or report-card use.
Reject	The requirement is outside scope, duplicative, or not useful enough to preserve.

10. Release Boundary

This V3 page may be used for review and candidate baseline discussion. It should not be treated as final approval for public scoring. National Debt and Deficit issue grades, member grades, active rollups, report-card penalties, and leaderboards remain disabled.