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Six Key Issues
The Grand Bargain Project is designed to unite Americans around a practical plan to advance six objectives that 90+ percent of citizens see as critical to their future.
Boost economic mobility and growth
Reform education so students reach their potential
Make healthcare more effective and less costly
Curb the national debt
Promote more efficient, cleaner and reliable energy
Make the tax code fairer and simpler
Why We Need to Tackle These Six Issues Together
Ninety-six (96) percent of Americans hunger for major progress in one or more of these areas.
Yet neither political party has in recent decades made enough progress for most Americans to notice.
Both parties are at fault — because they enact each law to satisfy some voters, some interest groups and some politicians, at one point in time.
Current policies thereby contradict one another, allowing our chronic problems to grow worse, while wasting trillions of dollars.
This chronic failure has angered voters enough to tear our society apart.
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Systemic Remedy
To reunite the American people around a shared vision of our future – before it’s too late -- we are proposing common-sense reforms in the above six areas that, when combined, would vastly improve life for all.
We distilled ideas — from major stakeholders, think tank leaders, former policymakers, political activists and citizen groups — into 36 reforms, each one sentence long, that — when combined — would yield historic progress in all six areas, and at lower cost than current policies.
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Proof of Concept
Diverse audiences are consistently preferring the combined reforms over the country’s current direction, including:
97% of attendees at our Braver Angels workshop in June
93% of major stakeholder organizations interviewed to date
92% of attendees at Young Presidents Organization meeting in August
85% deficit hawks, climate activists, liberals and libertarians interviewed
A growing list of organizations are thereby seeing the 36-reform Grand Bargain as a roadmap for the future that will unite far more Americans than anything else can.
Building an Exponentially Growing Movement
Bridge Alliance, various Rotary Clubs, and other civic groups are working with us to incorporate the Grand Bargain into their community-building programs.
Braver Angels and others will host workshops in which participants deliberate over the evolving plan.
To foster nationwide dialogue, we will hold at least three workshops in each of the 435 congressional districts. Citizens will deliberate over the combined reforms — in community meeting and online. We will, in turn, distill the results into a form that we will deliver to political leaders as representing the will of the America people.
To mobilize the 100+ million “exhausted majority” who hunger for a better future — but lack the tools to affect change — we will air digital-social media messages such as: If we unite into a movement supporting the Grand Bargain, we could at last exert influence proportional to our numbers.
To members of the new congressional majority most alarmed about our democracy, our disunity, the national debt or economic discontent, we will make a case that, In a Senate and House with slim majorities of three or less, if a handful of you unite into a Grand Bargain Working Group, you could become the gatekeepers — steering the agenda in a far more constructive direction than now.
Expected Outcomes
A critical mass of Americans, influencers and stakeholders will increasingly unite around the grand bargain, creating an exponentially growing movement to demand replacing divisiveness and dysfunction with constructive action in all six areas.
Pro-Grand Bargain lawmakers will then be empowered to tell their colleagues:
To show voters we’re on their side, and keep our jobs, we need to strongly support this widely popular agreement as the starting point for our deliberations.
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An ambitious plan. But no one has shown us any other credible way to reunite America. Nor do we see any other way to induce policymakers to agree on how to boost economic mobility, curb the debt, minimize destructive weather, or attain the other key objectives.
Our country thereby needs the grand bargain if the American people and our democracy are to thrive.
Grand Bargain Articles
Join us in reuniting our country.
The Grand Bargain Project has gathered concrete evidence that common-sense reforms in all six of the above areas, if combined, would yield vast benefits to society — enough so that nearly every American would strongly prefer the total package over the country’s current direction.