Techniques are described for eliminating backpressure in a distributed system by changing the rate data flows through a processing element. Backpressure occurs when data throughput in a processing element begins to decrease, for example, if new processing elements are added to the operating chart or if the distributed system is required to process more data. Indicators of backpressure (current or future) may be monitored. Once current backpressure or potential backpressure is identified, the operator graph or data rates may be altered to alleviate the backpressure. For example, a processing element may reduce the data rates it sends to processing elements that are downstream in the operator graph, or processing elements and/or data paths may be eliminated. In one embodiment, processing elements and associate data paths may be prioritized so that more important execution paths are maintained.