A Way Forward, Together

By AFK
First edition, October 26, 2026

What this is

This is a framework for the United States: a plan for where we think the country should go and how we could get there. It's written for anyone who lives here, whichever party you typically vote for, or none.

A lot of our politics right now is about beating the other side. That isn't the same as fixing problems, and most people are tired of it. People are tired of being scared and talked down to. We think Americans have more in common than it looks like, and that there's enough common ground to build on.

This names real problems and takes a position on each one. You won't agree with all of them. We'd rather say what we actually think than water it down. The goals are what we're firm on. How we get there is open, and we expect to be wrong about some of it. When we are, we want to know.

How to read it. This is the whole plan in one place. Start with What we share and the Principles, because everything else is built on them. Each of the twenty commitments then gets a short summary: what we're aiming for, the main things we would do, who pays and how we'd know it's working. After that comes how it gets paid for and how the pieces fit together. If you want to go deeper on anything, there are longer documents behind this one:

• The commitments in full: each commitment in depth, with the problems, the facts and sources behind them, what we'd do, the strongest argument against it and what's still undecided.
• Following the chain: how each idea was tested: for each proposal, how people and businesses would probably react, what could go wrong and what would make us change course.
• Healthcare for Everyone: the health plan behind commitment 4: what's covered, what we save by taking insurers out, what other countries have learned and how it would run day to day.
• Paying for it: one budget for the whole plan: what everything costs, where the money comes from, the rule that keeps the debt in check and what families come out with.

How it changes. This is meant to change. If you think something is wrong or missing, tell us what problem your idea solves, what the best argument against it is and how we'd know it's working. Each new edition will say what changed and why.

What we share

Most of us want the same basic things:

• To afford a home, groceries and a doctor without lying awake at night.
• Kids who are safe, who can read and think for themselves, and who have a shot at a better life than ours.
• Work that pays enough and gets treated with respect, whether it happens at a desk, on a job site, in a field or at home caring for family.
• To live by our own beliefs, make our own choices and say what we think. And to be the kind of people who can back up what we say, hear out someone who disagrees, and change our minds when the facts call for it.
• Clean air and water, and a country our grandkids will still want to live in.
• Safe streets, and police and courts that treat everyone the same.
• A government that does what it said it would, doesn't waste our money, tells the truth about what things cost and can be fixed when it fails.
• Neighbors, and somewhere to belong.

None of that is left or right. We're a country of people who came from everywhere, from the first peoples who have been here for thousands of years to the family that got here last week, and most of us came looking for the same things.

We're less divided than we're told. People who study this keep finding the same thing. Most Americans are tired of the fighting and sit somewhere in the middle. We also get each other wrong. People on each side tend to think the other side's views are about twice as extreme as they really are. A lot of what divides us is a picture we've been given of the other side, not the people themselves.

Sources: More in Common's Hidden Tribes (2018) found about two-thirds of Americans belong to an "exhausted majority" that is tired of the fighting, and its Perception Gap study (2019) found that Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of the other side hold extreme views as actually do. A 2026 UMass Amherst national poll found that 76% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats say Americans have more in common than what divides them.

We don't agree on everything, and we shouldn't pretend to. But the ground we share is wide enough to build on, and the things we disagree about are worth arguing out in the open, as neighbors.

Principles

These are the things we should keep coming back to as we work through the details.

1. Freedom to live your own life. You should be able to speak your mind, practice your religion, love who you love and make decisions about your own body and life. Other people have those same rights. Freedom also means having a real choice about your work and your future. If leaving a bad job means losing your healthcare or your home, how much choice do you actually have?
2. We are still one country. Most of us want the same things: a decent living, safe neighborhoods, a good shot for our kids and a say in what happens to us. We're going to disagree about how to get there, sometimes strongly. That doesn't make the people on the other side our enemies. A plan for this country has to make room for people who will never vote for it. We should be able to argue about what works without deciding that entire groups of Americans are the problem.
3. Write the rules for people you don't trust. Before giving government a new power, ask whether you would be comfortable with the leaders you trust least having it. If the answer is no, that power needs stronger limits or shouldn't exist. This applies just as much to something we want to create as it does to something we oppose. Calling a board independent doesn't settle who controls it or who can hold it accountable.
4. Use what works. Markets do a lot of things well. Competition gives people choices and pushes businesses to improve. We should protect that, including making sure new businesses have a fair chance against established ones. Where markets fail to meet an important need, government has a job to do. We should judge that work by whether it helps people and whether it's worth the cost. The size of government by itself tells us very little.
5. Show the math. What does it cost? Who pays? What are we giving up to do it? Put the assumptions where people can see them. If we're borrowing, say so. If something depends on future growth or savings, show what happens if those come in lower than expected. We can make a case for investing in the country without pretending everything pays for itself.
6. Think past the first move. People will respond to whatever rules we create. Businesses will change how they operate. Some will look for loopholes. We need to follow those reactions far enough to understand where a good idea could go wrong and who could get hurt. Wherever possible, make the outcome we want the sensible choice for the people involved. A rule that constantly fights their incentives will be hard to make work.
7. Be ready to be wrong. We should say what success looks like before a program starts, then check whether it's happening. Make big changes in stages so we have a chance to learn before expanding them. If something isn't working, fix it, replace it or stop it. Being invested in an idea can't become a reason to ignore what it's doing.
8. Leave it better. Our kids will inherit the country we leave behind, including the things we put off dealing with. We should take care of the land, maintain what we build and keep our finances and institutions in shape. Some investments take a generation to pay off. That is a reason to get started.
9. People need a voice and a stake. People should have a say in the decisions that shape their lives, at work, in their communities and in government. They should also have a fair chance to own a share of what they help build. That takes trustworthy elections, the right to organize, a free press and room for new competitors. Power needs enforceable limits whether it belongs to a government agency, an employer, a bank or a technology company. Basic income can give someone breathing room. It doesn't, by itself, give them a voice.
10. Build what we need. We need enough homes, reliable power, available care and people trained to do the work. More money helps, but shortages can eat up those gains through higher prices and longer waits. Every major commitment needs a practical answer for who will build it, staff it, run it and maintain it. Those preparations belong at the beginning, before we promise people something we can't deliver.

The twenty commitments

Each of these is a short version. The full reasoning, the facts and the sources are in the commitments in full, and the numbers match.

1. Honest conversation and shared wisdom

The goal: Americans who disagree can talk to each other again. Every kid learns to think for themselves, and what older generations know gets passed on instead of lost.

The facts: each side thinks the other is about twice as extreme as it really is. In a Stanford study, two-thirds of high school students couldn't tell a news story from a paid ad. More than a third of the country's local newspapers have closed since 2005. And more than 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day, many of them taking a lifetime of hands-on skill with them.

• Teach how to think, not what to think: students learn to check a claim, find the original source and make the best case for a view they disagree with. The lessons are public, they use misleading claims from every direction, and students are graded on the method, never the conclusion.
• Put neighbors in the same room: pay a random mix of local residents to study a real local problem together, and require the council to answer their recommendations in writing. When Stanford brought 500 voters from across the country together this way, support for the most extreme ideas on both sides dropped.
• Pass the wisdom on: paid mentorships and apprenticeships that pair retirees, veterans and tradespeople with young people, with employers agreeing up front to interview the people who finish. Both the Obama and Trump administrations set goals to grow apprenticeships.
• A voluntary paid service year: fire crews, conservation, disaster recovery, caregiving or the military, in teams that mix people from different places. It pays a living wage plus help with tuition or a first home. It builds on AmeriCorps, which President Clinton created and President George W. Bush called for growing after 9/11.
• Local news, with government out of the newsroom: an automatic tax credit for hiring local reporters, like the laws already working in New York and Illinois, so no official gets to pick winners. Big platforms also have to offer a feed that isn't ranked by outrage.

Who pays: a modest amount of public money, mostly through tax credits and local programs.

How we'll know: fewer Americans see the other party as an enemy. Today about 6 in 10 Republicans and over half of Democrats see the other party very unfavorably. We want to cut that by a third in ten years.

Read the full commitment

2. Cost of living and housing

The goal: a working family can afford a home, groceries and power, and a young person can picture owning a home someday.

The facts: the country is short somewhere between 4 and 10 million homes. A record 22.7 million renter households, about half of all renters, spend more than 30% of their income on housing. The typical first-time buyer is now 38, the oldest on record. And on most residential land in most of the country, it's illegal to build anything but a detached single-family house.

• Make it legal to build homes again: starter homes, duplexes, backyard units and apartments get approved when they meet the written rules, and towns that build get infrastructure money. Towns still decide on design and where growth goes. Where places have done this, it's worked. Rents in Minneapolis grew far more slowly than in the rest of Minnesota after the city loosened its zoning, and Austin built a lot and saw rents fall from their peak.
• Fix up the homes we already have: nearly 5 million homes sit empty, often because the repairs cost more than the house would sell for. A rehab tax credit closes that gap for people who will live in them. It's modeled on the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which a Republican and a Democrat sponsored together.
• Help first-time buyers where homes are being built: down-payment help goes only to places adding new homes, so it doesn't just push prices up.
• Stop homelessness before it starts: in a Chicago study, people who got one-time emergency money when they called a homeless hotline were 76% less likely to end up in a shelter. We should pay for what keeps people housed a year later and stop paying for what doesn't.
• Fair grocery prices: four companies handle about 85% of beef processing. Enforce competition law in food, give farmers more buyers to sell to, and help new local processors and grocers get started.

Who pays: changing zoning costs almost nothing. The rehab credit costs a few billion dollars a year at first.

How we'll know: homes actually finished (not just approved), rents and home prices compared with incomes, the age of first-time buyers, and homelessness.

Read the full commitment

3. Community, childcare and family time

The goal: every town has places where people spend time together, and parents can work without childcare eating the whole paycheck.

The facts: the Surgeon General found that being cut off from other people is about as bad for your health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Americans spent 47 minutes a day with other people in person in 2003, and about 35 minutes in 2025. Childcare averages about $13,000 a year, more than in-state college tuition in many states, while the people who provide it make about $15 an hour. About a quarter of mothers go back to work within two weeks of giving birth. And juvenile crime peaks in the hours right after school.

• Make community events easy to put on: one simple, cheap permit and shared insurance for markets, festivals and clubs, plus a state insurance pool so school gyms and libraries can stay open evenings and weekends.
• Childcare people can afford: raise care workers' pay and train more of them first, then expand help to families. Families get a real choice, including care at home by a parent or relative.
• Cover the after-school hours: programs from 3:00 to 6:00 with homework help, sports, arts and mentoring, during the hours kids are most likely to get into trouble.
• Paid family leave: a national floor of 12 weeks, paid from a shared pool funded by about 1% of wages, split between the worker and the employer. On a $50,000 salary that's about $500 a year. Fourteen states and DC already do this, and California has since 2004.
• One front door for care: childcare, disability help and elder care with one place to apply.

Who pays: the leave premium pays for leave. Childcare and after-school care are in the budget.

How we'll know: how connected people feel to their community, what childcare costs compared with income, and whether parents can work the hours they want.

Read the full commitment

4. Healthcare and mental health

The goal: everyone can see a doctor, a therapist and a dentist and fill a prescription without going broke. Patients and doctors make medical decisions, not insurance companies.

The facts: America spends about $14,800 per person on healthcare. Similar wealthy countries spend about $7,900, and their people live longer. About 34% of our health spending goes to administration, twice Canada's 17%. In a national survey, 93% of doctors said insurers' prior authorization delays care patients need. More than half of U.S. counties have no psychiatrist, and Congress has capped the number of doctor training slots since 1997.

• One public plan for everyone: it pays in full for everything medically needed, including dental, vision, hearing, mental health and long-term care. Doctors and hospitals stay independent, and insurers no longer decide anyone's care.
• Two waves: in January 2029, everyone under 27, the uninsured and everyone on Medicaid or the ACA marketplace. In January 2030, everyone else, including people with coverage through work and people on Medicare. Each wave starts only after its systems pass public readiness tests.
• Fix how it works, not just who pays: one claim form and one price list, no insurer overruling your doctor, and lower drug prices. Right now about $41 of every $100 spent on prescription drugs goes to middlemen instead of the companies that make them. Lift the cap on training slots so there are more doctors and nurses where people actually live.
• Protect people during the switch: nobody loses care in the middle of treatment, and people who work in billing get retrained.

Who pays: taking insurers out saves about $0.62 trillion a year, which covers most of the cost of covering everyone in full. The rest comes from three places. Employers pay 6.5% of payroll in place of premiums. States keep paying their current Medicaid share. Households pay a health contribution of 8% of income up to $125,000 for a single person or $200,000 for a couple, and 16% above that. The first $25,000 per adult is exempt, and each parent's rate is 0.25 points higher for each child. Premiums, deductibles and copays go away. A family of four making $80,000 pays about $6,700 a year less than today.

How we'll know: how many people are uninsured, medical debt, wait times and out-of-pocket costs.

Read the full commitment

5. Work, income and automation

The goal: as AI and automation do more of the work, everyone shares in what they produce, through a secure income floor, better pay and more free time.

The facts: a 2025 Stanford study found that employment for 22- to 25-year-olds in the jobs most exposed to AI fell about 13% after generative AI arrived. Union membership is down to about 10% of workers, half of what it was in 1983. The 40-hour week was set in 1938. And about a fifth of workers now need a government license to do their job.

• A universal basic income: every adult gets the same monthly payment, starting at $500 in 2029, and every child adds $250 from the start, halved from a family's fifth child on. It never phases out, and it goes on top of every program that exists today. The adult amount is set to rise $125 a year toward $1,000 as the money allows. People on both sides have backed this idea. Milton Friedman proposed a version, President Nixon nearly passed one, and Alaska has paid every resident an oil dividend since 1982.
• A shorter workweek, without forcing anyone: lower the overtime line step by step from 40 hours toward 32, while hourly pay rises so take-home pay stays the same.
• Training that leads to real jobs: apprenticeships and programs tied to openings employers have agreed to fill, especially in trades that are hard to automate. Programs built this way work. People who went through San Antonio's Project QUEST earned about $5,000 a year more than similar workers who didn't.
• A say when technology changes your job: big employers give advance notice, retraining and a share of what they save.
• Benefits that follow you, and easier ownership: portable benefits for gig workers, and simple ways for workers to buy into their company. About 6,500 companies are already employee-owned, covering about 14 million workers.

Who pays: about $1.75 trillion a year at launch, from the funding described in section 6. Plan on adults getting $500 through most of the 2030s. $1,000 comes around 2042 if AI's gains are substantial, and around 2037 if they're transformative.

How we'll know: poverty, how financially stable people are, hours worked, new businesses and how much time people can give to caregiving.

Read the full commitment

6. Taxes, budget and debt

The goal: the people who have gained the most pay their fair share, working families don't get squeezed, and everything in this plan is paid for honestly.

The facts: counting the growth in their wealth, the 400 wealthiest families paid an average federal tax rate of about 8% from 2010 to 2018. The top 1% got about 22% of all income in 2022. About $700 billion a year in taxes that are owed goes unpaid. The national debt is over $40 trillion, and the interest on it now costs more than the military. Only about 4,000 estates owed any estate tax in 2023.

• Tax the very top more, on real money: the top rate goes back to 39.6% above about $400,000, where it was under President Clinton, and 44.6% above $1 million. Large gains get taxed like wages, and the lower rate for investments starts after 3 years instead of 1.
• No tax on paper gains: nobody pays tax on value they haven't cashed in. Instead, heirs of estates over $5 million pay tax on the old gains when they sell, and borrowing more than $10 million against stock counts as selling it.
• The America Fund: each year, large public companies put 1.5% of their shares into a fund that every American owns together. It pays a dividend toward the basic income, so everyone owns a growing piece of the AI economy. Alaska and Norway have run shared public funds like this for decades.
• Make automation pay its share: big companies whose payroll shrinks as they replace workers pay a surcharge, and large AI companies pay a tax on AI sales that goes up if unemployment goes up.
• Take the debt seriously: collect the taxes people already owe and act on the waste the Government Accountability Office has already found, which has saved hundreds of billions so far. The plan only borrows up to a published limit. Past that limit, the next step waits and a backstop tax goes up automatically. We won't try to inflate the debt away.

Who pays: mostly the very top, large companies and a broad sales tax (a VAT) that starts at 10%. "How it gets paid for" below explains it.

How we'll know: the tax rates each income group actually pays, how revenue compares with the estimates, and debt as a share of the economy.

Read the full commitment

7. Education and skills

The goal: every kid is fed and safe and can read, write, do math and reason, and every kid sees a real path to a good living, whether that's college, a trade or an apprenticeship.

The facts: about 40% of fourth graders now read below the basic level, the most since 2002, and about a third of eighth graders do, the most ever recorded. About 8% of teachers leave each year, and it costs roughly $20,000 to replace each one. In 1975 the federal government promised to pay 40% of the extra cost of special education. It has paid 13 to 15%. There's one school counselor for every 385 students, when 250 is the recommended number. And the skilled trades need about 1.7 million new workers a year, while we train about 55 for every 100 needed.

• Back teachers up: better pay, classroom aides, prep time and less paperwork, with bonuses for good teachers who stay in high-need schools.
• The basics for every kid: free school meals, enough counselors, and finally paying the federal share of special education that Congress promised in 1975.
• Less teaching to the test: keep a few honest measures in reading and math, and drop the rest.
• Learning tied to real life: hands-on projects, and money skills like loans, credit, taxes and rent for every student. About half the states already require a personal finance course, and students who take one handle credit better later on.
• Treat the trades as a first-class path: far more vocational training and apprenticeships, and honest numbers on what each career pays before anyone takes out a loan.

Who pays: federal money with few strings attached beyond results. States and districts decide how to use it.

How we'll know: reading and math levels, how many teachers stay, apprenticeships, and student debt compared with what people earn.

Read the full commitment

8. Energy, climate and the grid

The goal: as much clean, cheap, reliable power as we can build, a stable climate, and electric bills families can afford, without punishing rural people or people who barely use any fuel.

The facts: the 11 hottest years on record all came between 2015 and 2025, and the country had 23 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2025. Power costs about 35 cents a kilowatt-hour in California and about 19 cents nationally, and the 2021 Texas freeze showed what a weak grid costs in lives. About 2,300 gigawatts of new power, twice everything running today, is waiting in line to connect, often for about five years. Grid transformers take about two and a half years to arrive and cost about 77% more than they used to. Methane traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in its first decades, and about 40% of the methane from oil and gas could be cut at no net cost.

• Build clean power and the grid to carry it: solar, wind, geothermal, batteries and nuclear, more power on the lines we already have, a faster line to get hooked up, and grid equipment made here.
• Change how utilities make money: they should profit from lower bills, fewer outages and fewer fires, not from building the most.
• Stop methane leaks first: it's the cheapest pollution to stop, and the gas that gets captured can be sold.
• Put a price on pollution and give the money back: a carbon fee starts at $25 a ton and goes up $10 a year. About 70% comes back as equal monthly checks, roughly $1,500 to $2,000 a year for a family of four, and most of the rest helps rural drivers, farms and energy workers.
• Leave the occasional user alone: the farmer with an old truck and the person with a chainsaw don't pay it.

Who pays: polluters, through the fee. Wealthier households use far more energy, so most lower- and middle-income households come out ahead once the checks come in.

How we'll know: bills, outages, fires started by utilities and emissions, checked every five years on the way to net zero by 2050.

Read the full commitment

9. Land, water, farms and rural life

The goal: healthy soil, clean water and forests that don't burn out of control, with farms and rural towns that can make a good living.

The facts: the Colorado River's water was divided up as if the river carried about 16.5 million acre-feet a year. Since 2000 it has averaged about 12 million. About 7 million acres burn in a typical year, and the 2018 Camp Fire, started by a power line, killed 85 people. About 195 rural hospitals have closed since 2005. And a lot of farmers can't fix their own tractors because the software is locked.

• Pay farmers for results: voluntary payments for measured improvements in soil health, water and habitat, not for labels or paperwork.
• Water math that adds up: count water savings across the whole river basin, and pay farmers who choose to leave water in the river.
• Get ahead of wildfire: a year-round professional fire workforce, a lot more prescribed and cultural burning, and hardened homes with clear evacuation routes.
• Safer power lines in fire country: harden or bury the riskiest lines. Covered wire costs far less than burying and takes care of much of the risk.
• Keep public lands public, and keep rural towns alive: clear the more than $20 billion backlog of repairs in our parks, manage land together with tribes, fund rural hospitals and broadband, and guarantee the right to repair your own equipment.

Who pays: the voluntary farm payments, fire crew pay and work to clear fuels are all priced in the budget.

How we'll know: acres burned in severe fires, homes lost, water supply and farm income.

Read the full commitment

10. Infrastructure and building faster

The goal: a country that can build again. Roads, bridges, lead-free water, power lines, broadband and transit, done on time and on budget.

The facts: other wealthy countries build subway lines for about $350 million a mile on average. New York's Second Avenue Subway cost about $4 billion a mile. Civil engineers estimate a $3.7 trillion repair gap over ten years. About 4 million homes still get their water through lead pipes, and 3.3 million families with a child under 6 live in homes with lead paint. About 40,000 people die on our roads every year.

• Faster permits that still protect people: firm deadlines, one lead agency and limits on repeat lawsuits.
• Experts on the inside: agencies keep their own engineers instead of letting contractors define the job.
• Fix it first: a protected repair budget, so bridges and pipes don't fail.
• Get the lead out: replace every lead water pipe in ten years at no cost to owners, fix lead paint in homes with young children, and test every child for lead at ages 1 and 2. That costs about $7 billion a year. Administrations of both parties have pushed to get lead pipes out.
• Broadband for every home: paid by the speeds people actually get.

Who pays: the infrastructure line in the budget, including about $7 billion a year for lead.

How we'll know: how long projects take, cost per mile compared with other countries, lead pipes still in the ground, road deaths and broadband coverage.

Read the full commitment

11. Technology, AI and media

The goal: technology makes life better for everyone, not just a few people, and nobody can use AI or the internet to deceive us, spy on us or make our choices for us.

The facts: from 2013 to 2015, Michigan's automated unemployment system wrongly accused tens of thousands of people of fraud. In 2024, an AI-generated call faking the president's voice told New Hampshire voters to stay home. The country still has no federal privacy law. Training a leading AI model costs hundreds of millions of dollars, which few can afford. Federal courts ruled in 2024 and 2025 that Google illegally kept monopolies, and more than 50 AI copyright cases are pending, one of them already settled for $1.5 billion.

• Stay the world leader: fund basic research and public computing for universities and startups, so it isn't just a few companies that can build.
• Stricter rules only where the stakes are high: AI that makes decisions about health, jobs, loans, benefits or policing gets tested, has a named company responsible for it, and gives you an appeal to a real person. Low-risk uses stay free.
• Real competition: stop the biggest platforms from buying up rivals or favoring their own products, and let you take your data with you.
• Honest labels and real privacy: label AI-made political content and bots, keep privacy on by default, and protect kids from designs built to hook them. Nobody has to show ID to post online.
• Fair pay for creators: a clear way to license people's work when AI trains on it, the way radio pays songwriters through shared royalties, and no AI copies of a real person's voice or face without their consent.

Who pays: research funding, along with the AI taxes in section 6.

How we'll know: wages and productivity, fraud losses, new startups and privacy complaints.

Read the full commitment

12. Government that works

The goal: every department is held accountable for results, spends carefully and can hire people as sharp as the best private companies do.

The facts: federal spending in the last week of the budget year runs about five times the normal rate. Hiring takes about 100 days, twice as long as at private companies. Federal wildland fire crews keep losing experienced leaders to state agencies that pay more. And the Government Accountability Office lists more than 600 open recommendations worth over $100 billion, plus 38 areas on its High Risk List.

• Keep what you save: agencies keep part of what they can prove they saved, so there's no reason for spending sprees at the end of the year.
• Pay enough to compete for good people: faster hiring and competitive pay for jobs that are hard to fill, starting with federal wildland firefighters. That means pay for all hours on assignment, year-round jobs and retirement that matches the states. Congress took a first step in March 2025 by making the firefighter raise permanent.
• Work with industry the smart way: test new technology on real needs, keep ownership of the government's data, and never get locked into one vendor.
• Ask the front line first: try out new rules with the people who have to carry them out.
• Audit results, not just spending, and learn from failure: find the root causes the way aviation does. Pilots report mistakes without fear of being punished, and flying got far safer because of it. Protect whistleblowers and publish what's found.

Who pays: better pay for hard-to-fill jobs. Savings only count once outside auditors confirm them.

How we'll know: end-of-year spending spikes, time to hire, turnover in critical jobs, open audit recommendations and how long people wait for service.

Read the full commitment

13. Democracy, elections and courts

The goal: every eligible citizen can vote easily and every vote is counted securely. Politicians answer to voters instead of donors, independents get a real chance, and people can trust the courts.

The facts: outside spending in federal elections has grown from a few hundred million dollars a cycle before 2010 to several billion, and we can't see where much of it comes from. Most districts are safe for one party, primary turnout is often 20% or less, and tens of millions of independents can't vote in their state's primaries at all. In 2024, 38% of local election officials said they had been threatened, harassed or abused. In July 2026 only 33% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court, a record low.

• Break the two-party lock: open primaries, ranked-choice voting, independent redistricting and term limits for Congress.
• Follow the money: full, fast disclosure of who pays for political ads, and public matching for small donations. New York City has matched small gifts for decades, now up to 8 to 1, and Seattle mails every voter four $25 vouchers to give to candidates. Work toward undoing Citizens United with a narrow amendment. About two dozen states have already passed resolutions asking for one.
• No stock trading in Congress: members and their families can't own or trade individual stocks while they're in office. Polls find big majorities in both parties support this.
• Easy to vote, hard to cheat: free voter ID that's easy to get, paper ballots and audits, early voting and mail options, and real penalties for threatening election workers.
• Courts people can trust: keep the Supreme Court at nine, give justices staggered 18-year terms through a constitutional amendment, and hold them to an ethics code like every other federal judge. Pay for lawyers in eviction cases. Where New York City gave tenants lawyers, most of them stayed in their homes.

Who pays: matching small donations costs a few dollars per person a year.

How we'll know: trust in elections and courts, turnout, how many districts are competitive and how much money comes from small donors.

Read the full commitment

14. Justice and public safety

The goal: safe communities, police who are trained, supported and held accountable, a justice system that treats everyone the same, and people who leave prison ready not to go back.

The facts: police solved about 6 in 10 murders in 2024, compared with about 9 in 10 in the 1960s, and more than 650,000 violent crimes ended without an arrest. About 7 in 10 people released from state prison are arrested again within five years. Keeping one person in prison costs roughly $40,000 or more a year. About 8% of prisoners are held by companies paid for every occupied bed. Overdose deaths topped 100,000 a year at their peak.

• Solve more crimes: hire more detectives, pay and train officers well, and hold misconduct accountable. Knowing you'll get caught deters crime far more than a longer sentence does.
• Send mental health teams to mental health calls: so officers can focus on serious crime.
• Phase out for-profit prisons: nobody should make money keeping people locked up. Every prison, public or private, gets independent inspections.
• Reentry that works: education, job training, treatment and housing, starting before release. People who took classes in prison were about 43% less likely to go back.
• Legal cannabis, and treatment for addiction: legalize and tax cannabis like alcohol and clear old possession records. The main study of Colorado and Washington found no lasting effect on crime. Harder drugs stay illegal. We take a hard line on fentanyl traffickers and offer treatment instead of jail for people whose only offense is addiction. Oregon tried decriminalizing harder drugs and partly reversed it in 2024, and we should learn from that.

Who pays: crisis teams, detectives, public defenders and reentry are in the budget, and cannabis taxes pay for prevention.

How we'll know: violent and property crime, cases solved, how many people reoffend and how many victims get help.

Read the full commitment

15. Guns

The goal: far fewer Americans killed by guns, while fully respecting law-abiding people's right to own guns for hunting, sport and protecting their homes.

The facts: in 2024 about 62% of gun deaths were suicides. That was 27,593 people, a record, often in a moment of crisis with a gun from home. In many cities, fewer than 1% of residents are involved in most shootings, either as victims or shooters. And for about twenty years, federal research on gun deaths was nearly frozen, so a lot of the debate runs on assumptions.

• Go after the causes first: fund crisis care and the 988 line, and give multi-year funding to the violence-prevention programs that work with the small number of people most likely to shoot or be shot.
• Free, easy safe storage: a tax credit or voucher for a safe or lockbox, handed out through hunting groups, ranges and veterans' groups, because gun owners listen to other gun owners. Only the purchase gets recorded, never the gun.
• Keep guns away from people a court has found dangerous: with notice, a hearing, a time limit and guns returned automatically when the order ends. About 21 states and DC have these laws, and studies in Connecticut and Indiana found roughly one suicide prevented for every 10 to 20 orders.
• Background checks on every sale: free and fast by phone or app, with family transfers and hunting loans exempt and no federal registry. About 7 in 10 gun owners and nearly 9 in 10 non-owners support checks on private sales.
• Enforce the laws we already have: go after straw buyers and traffickers, and fund honest research that includes researchers gun owners trust. If the evidence shows a policy doesn't work, we drop it.

Who pays: small amounts for storage credits, crisis care and enforcement.

How we'll know: gun suicides, homicides, accidental deaths and how many people store guns safely.

Read the full commitment

16. Immigration

The goal: we keep welcoming people through a legal system that works, with a border that is secure and humane and a hard line against traffickers.

The facts: the immigration court backlog was still about 3.4 million cases in late 2025, with average waits near two years. For some family categories the legal wait is more than 20 years, because the yearly limits have barely changed since 1990. About 11 to 14 million people live here without legal status, many for more than ten years. Most fentanyl is smuggled through official ports of entry, often by U.S. citizens. And detention hit a record of about 70,000 to 73,000 people in January 2026, most of them with no criminal conviction, at about $150 a person a day.

• Legal paths that work: clear, fast ways to come here to work, join family, study or seek refuge, with numbers based on real labor needs, so people use the front door.
• Decisions in months, not years: far more immigration judges and case officers. A process that's fast and fair beats a backlog that rewards waiting.
• A secure, humane border: better scanning and more lanes at the ports, where most fentanyl comes through, and detention for people who are dangerous or likely to run.
• Crush trafficking and protect workers: go after cartels and their money, and after employers who use people's immigration status against them, which undercuts honest businesses and American workers.
• A path to citizenship for people who've built their lives here: a background check, back taxes, English and civics, and a place in line, paired with real border security. The 1986 law legalized about 2.7 million people without enforcement that lasted, so this time the two go together. No arrests at people's own immigration hearings or green card interviews.

Who pays: more judges and port staff, in the budget.

How we'll know: the backlog and wait times, legal versus illegal entries, and trafficking cases.

Read the full commitment

17. Personal choice

The goal: adults make their own decisions about their bodies, their health and their lives, with accurate information and responsibility for how their choices affect other people.

The facts: during the pandemic, a lot of people felt rules were handed down with no clear reason or end date, and trust in public health fell sharply. Measles cases in 2025 were the highest in more than 30 years, mostly among unvaccinated children. Since 2022, many women travel hundreds of miles for abortion care, and vague exceptions have left doctors in some states afraid to treat miscarriages and emergencies.

• Government stays out of private medical decisions: including whether to get a vaccine and whether to continue a pregnancy. Vaccines stay free and easy to get, with honest information from local doctors, who people trust far more than national agencies.
• Abortion: a woman decides with her doctor up to viability, about 24 weeks, the point medical groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists use. After that, it's allowed to protect her life or health, or when the fetus has a severe condition. Exceptions are written in medical terms, so doctors aren't afraid to treat emergencies.
• Limits on emergency powers: emergency rules have to state their purpose and evidence, and they expire unless lawmakers vote to renew them.
• Respect conscience: doctors and nurses aren't forced to perform procedures that go against deep moral beliefs, as long as patients can still get timely care and emergency care is always provided.
• End-of-life choice: terminally ill adults who are mentally competent can choose medical aid in dying, with two doctors signing off and strong safeguards, alongside good palliative care.

Who pays: there's little direct cost.

How we'll know: trust in health advice, vaccination rates and mothers' health.

Read the full commitment

18. Family, faith and equal dignity

The goal: strong families of every shape, freedom to practice any faith or none, and equal treatment under the law for every American.

The facts: when the monthly child tax credit ran in 2021, child poverty fell to a record low of 5.2%. When it expired, child poverty more than doubled, to 12.4% in 2022. Churches don't file financial returns, so donors can't see where the money goes, even at the largest organizations, while two-thirds of congregations take in less than $100,000 a year. And the fights that divide us most involve few people. About 17,700 minors started puberty blockers or hormones from 2017 to 2021, out of about 73 million children.

• Freedom at the center: people are free to live as they choose as long as they aren't harming others. That one test protects the devout believer and the gay couple next door equally. The freedom to believe and worship is close to absolute.
• Make raising a family affordable: a monthly child tax credit, paid leave, childcare and housing, so having kids isn't a financial risk.
• Equal treatment: nobody loses a job, a home or service because of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, with a narrow exemption for clergy and core religious roles.
• Public money comes with public rules: anyone delivering public services follows the same standards. Very large religious organizations lose their automatic tax exemption and have to show donors where the money goes, with credits for food banks, shelters and other community service. Small congregations, which are most of them, stay exempt.
• The hard cases, by the harm test: in elite strength and contact sports, the women's category is protected and an open category is added, while youth and recreational sports stay open. The NCAA in 2025 and the International Olympic Committee in 2026 also limited women's events. Gender treatment for minors waits until 18, or 16 with parental consent and counseling. Puberty blockers are used only in research studies until the evidence is stronger, which is what England does now after its independent Cass Review.

Who pays: the child tax credit is in the budget alongside the basic income's child amount.

How we'll know: child poverty, what it costs to raise kids, and discrimination complaints.

Read the full commitment

19. Aging, disability, retirement and veterans

The goal: everyone can retire with dignity, people with disabilities can live full lives, family caregivers get real support, and veterans get what they earned without having to fight for it.

The facts: Social Security's combined trust funds run out in 2034. After that, taxes cover only about 83% of promised benefits, and the retirement fund by itself runs out in late 2032. Wages above $184,500 aren't taxed for it at all. About 63 million adults care for a family member or friend without pay. Someone on disability support can lose benefits for having more than $2,000 in savings, a limit that hasn't changed since 1989. About 56 million private-sector workers have no retirement plan at work, and about 6,400 veterans die by suicide each year.

• Get the real numbers on Social Security: an independent public audit first, so the decision rests on numbers both sides trust. If we do nothing, benefits get cut about 17% automatically.
• Keep the promise: no cuts for anyone 55 or older. We lean toward removing the cap on wages taxed for Social Security, which closes about 45% of the gap on its own, and adding a modest limit on the very largest benefits.
• Medicare joins the public plan: seniors join in January 2030, with no premiums and with dental, vision and hearing covered.
• Care at home, and a way to save: pay for home care, including trained family caregivers, and give caregivers time off and retirement credit. Give every worker a simple retirement account. About 20 states already run automatic accounts, and more than 280,000 employers have signed up for California's.
• No penalties for working or getting married: for people with disabilities, benefits phase down gradually instead of falling off a cliff. And veterans get timely care, fast disability decisions and help with housing and careers.

Who pays: the Social Security fix mostly falls on the highest earners.

How we'll know: Social Security's funding, poverty among seniors, VA wait times and veteran suicide.

Read the full commitment

20. Defense, trade and the world

The goal: America stays the world's leading power by staying ahead in technology and keeping its word, not by spending the most.

The facts: the U.S. spent about $954 billion on its military in 2025, nearly three times what China spent, and the Pentagon failed its eighth audit in a row. Major weapons often take more than ten years to field, while Ukraine showed that cheap drones and fast software can change a battlefield in months. Ransomware has shut down hospitals and a major fuel pipeline. Studies of recent tariffs found nearly all the cost was passed on to American consumers and businesses. And PEPFAR, the HIV program started under President George W. Bush, is credited with saving about 25 million lives.

• End the blank check: pass an audit, make suppliers compete, and cancel programs that run years late and billions over. Open the door to newer companies, not just the five giants that win most contracts.
• Stay ahead through technology: AI, cyber defense, drones and space, and protect the grids, hospitals and water systems that attackers are already going after.
• A person is accountable for every use of lethal force: AI can help, but a named person approves every strike, and civilian deaths are investigated independently and made public. In February 2026 a U.S. strike hit an elementary school in Minab, Iran, reportedly after an AI system recommended a target listed in an outdated database, and a UN mission counted about 120 children killed.
• Smart trade: tariffs are mostly a tax on Americans, and they invite other countries to hit back at our farmers. Use them only as temporary protection for new industries tied to security, with firm end dates.
• Keep our word and help others do well: lead through strong alliances, the UN and other coalitions instead of acting as the world's police, and keep aid that's proven to work, like vaccines, HIV treatment and clean water. When we pull back, our rivals step in.

Who pays: savings from cutting contracting waste pay for better pay and housing for service members.

How we'll know: progress on the audit, cost overruns, readiness and cyber attacks.

Read the full commitment

How it gets paid for

The two biggest pieces are healthcare and the basic income. They aren't free, and none of this works if we pretend they are. Here's how we'd pay for them.

Healthcare mostly swaps what you pay now for something cheaper. Premiums, deductibles and copays go away. Employers pay a 6.5% contribution in place of premiums, and households pay a health contribution based on income. Taking out insurers' paperwork and profit saves about $0.62 trillion a year, which covers most of the cost of covering everyone in full.

The basic income is paid for in layers, not by one giant tax:

• The very top: higher top rates, large gains taxed like wages, a 28% corporate rate and loopholes closed.
• A broad sales tax (VAT): it starts at 10% on the day the first payments go out, about half the rate in Britain or France. Social Security and other benefits rise with prices, so the tax doesn't shrink them.
• AI and automation: the America Fund's dividend, the automation surcharge, the AI sales tax and a tiny tax on rapid-fire trading.
• Nothing taken away: every program that exists today stays, and the basic income goes on top.

What a family comes out with in the first full year, counting every new tax and the end of premiums:

• A family of four making $80,000: about $18,000 ahead.
• A single worker making $60,000: about $1,200 ahead, or about $2,600 once the employer passes on what it saves on premiums. In the cautious case, it's about even.
• A couple making $150,000: about $2,600 ahead, or about $2,700 behind in the cautious case.
• Very high earners: they pay a lot more. That's on purpose.

Keeping the debt in check. The plan can borrow, openly and up to a published limit, until the debt it adds reaches 3% of the economy. Past that line, the next increase in the basic income waits. If the debt keeps rising, the VAT goes up 3 points a year until the books balance, then comes back down. An independent office checks this every year, and payments never go backward. If AI pushes unemployment and underemployment past 12%, a jobs trigger kicks in. It raises the automation tax on companies' excess profits, turns on a surcharge for big companies that shed U.S. payroll, and pauses VAT increases, so the plan borrows instead of taxing spending during a slump.

If AI's gains come slowly. Adults may get $500 a month through most of the 2030s. $1,000 is the goal. It gets there around 2042 if AI's gains are substantial and around 2037 if they're transformative. If AI's gains are modest, adults stay at $500. Services like childcare, home care and housing phase in from 2029 to 2033, and when money is tight they come before the cash increases.

These are our own estimates. We'll have the whole plan scored independently before we ask anyone to sign on.

How it fits together

Twenty commitments only work if they fit together. Here's how we'd keep them that way.

One budget. Every proposal goes into one shared budget, so no savings get counted twice and no tax money gets spent twice. It keeps ongoing costs separate from the one-time cost of switching over. It shows the combined tax rate on each extra dollar someone earns, and what typical households end up with after taxes, benefits, healthcare and housing. It's all in Paying for it.

Do things in the right order. Some things have to come first:

1. Start now: things with strong evidence and low risk. Fix use-it-or-lose-it budgets, stop insurers from overruling doctors, safe storage, deadlines for permits, lead pipe and paint removal, more power on existing lines, instant solar permits, crisis teams, faster immigration decisions, more teachers, more building and more renewables.
2. Build the base: more housing, more healthcare capacity and the people in government to deliver. Without these, new money just raises prices or gets stuck.
3. Phase in the big changes: healthcare for everyone comes first and fastest, in two waves in 2029 and 2030. Then the basic income and the shorter workweek, step by step, with checkpoints. Each next step happens only if the last one worked.

We shouldn't wait for a perfect plan before fixing something dangerous or expanding something that works.

One scorecard. We judge the whole thing by what happens in people's lives:

• Can families afford a home, healthcare, childcare and food?
• Do people feel secure, free and in control of their time?
• Are kids learning, and do young people see a path to a good living?
• Do people trust their neighbors, their elections and their government a little more each year?
• Are the air and water cleaner, and are emissions going down?
• Are we better able to handle fires, floods, pandemics and economic shocks?

Results get broken down by region, income, age and disability, so a good national average can't hide places that are being left behind.

Three versions of the budget. A plan this big has to work in good times and bad, so the budget is built three ways. The first phase includes only what has named funding and the people to deliver it today. The full plan shows the whole package if things go reasonably well, with steady growth and all the funding in place. The hard-times plan shows what happens if AI takes jobs faster than expected or tax revenue comes in weak: which steps pause, which protections stay no matter what, and how the AI tax and other automatic safeguards kick in. Each version shows what it means for a few typical households after taxes, cash benefits, healthcare, housing and childcare. If the full plan needs taxes that reach beyond the very top, the budget says so plainly.

The people to do the work. Money is only half of it. This plan needs more teachers, nurses, doctors, care workers, builders, electricians, firefighters and public engineers, at the same time that it gives people more freedom to work fewer hours. Those two things can fit together, but only if we plan for it. Each commitment says what workforce it needs: how many people, trained how, paid what and found where. Big programs phase in no faster than that workforce can grow.

A time test. Our time matters as much as our money, and a lot of policies use up people's time without counting it: hours on hold, forms, appeals, commutes, waiting rooms and the unpaid work of coordinating a family member's care. Every major proposal estimates whose time it saves and whose time it costs, and we check those estimates against what people actually go through.

Measure what matters, without burying people in paperwork. Almost every commitment here calls for measuring and reviewing, and all together that could create the same kind of paperwork this plan complains about. So each proposal also estimates how much reporting it puts on frontline workers, reuses data that already exists, and saves the heavy reviews for decisions that are high-stakes or expensive. Pilot programs get tested in ordinary places, including understaffed rural counties, not just in towns with unusually strong leadership.

Three things to do first. To show this can actually be done, we'd start with three commitments that are fairly cheap, have strong evidence behind them and change daily life quickly. Each one has someone in charge of delivering it, a first milestone and a clear effect on an ordinary household.

• Insurers can't overrule your doctor, and one standard way to bill (4)
  • Who delivers it: the Department of Health and Human Services, through the rules every insurer has to follow to take part in Medicare, Medicaid and the marketplaces.
  • First milestone: within a year, prior authorization decisions within 72 hours for urgent care, a clinician in the same field reviewing every denial, and one standard claim form.
  • What it takes: mostly staff to write and enforce the rules. It saves money on paperwork.
  • For a household: fewer delayed treatments and fewer hours on the phone fighting denials.
• Homes legal to build, and run-down homes fixed up (2)
  • Who delivers it: states and towns change the zoning. The federal part is the infrastructure reward and the rehab tax credit, run by HUD and the Treasury.
  • First milestone: within two years, ten states where starter homes and backyard units are approved when they meet the rules, and the first round of rehab credits.
  • What it takes: the rehab credit costs a few billion dollars a year at first. Zoning changes cost little.
  • For a household: over several years, more homes for sale and rent, and rents rising more slowly than wages.
• Paid family leave and after-school care until 6:00 (3)
  • Who delivers it: a shared leave insurance program run with the states, and after-school matching funds through school districts and community groups.
  • First milestone: leave paid within two years, funded by the small shared payroll premium, with after-school programs starting in the districts that need them most.
  • What it takes: the premium (about 1% of wages, split between worker and employer) pays for leave, plus after-school matching funds and staff.
  • For a household: time with a new baby or a sick parent without losing your job, and kids looked after until their parents get home.

Read more, or help improve it

Every commitment above is explained in more depth in the commitments in full, along with the decisions that are still open. Following the chain shows how each idea was tested. The money is laid out in Paying for it, and the health plan in Healthcare for Everyone.

Anyone can suggest a change. Just tell us what problem it solves, what the best argument against it is and how we'd know it's working.