CENTER FOR COLLABORATIVE DEMOCRACY
39 Grand Bargain Reforms
Economic Mobility growth
The average American has steadily lost economic ground compared to those at the top. Understandably, 77% of citizens tell pollsters that the economy is benefiting powerful interests at their expense. And with artificial intelligence potentially replacing people in 30% of current jobs, public discontent will likely keep growing.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
Provide all workers with the incentives and skills to steadily move up the economic ladder. Promote basic research and entrepreneurship. End obstacles to building affordable housing.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Create incentives for community colleges, employers, unions and other providers to constantly improve and expand programs that train workers for higher paying jobs, especially in fast-growing industries
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Reduce regulations that restrict construction of new affordable housing and infrastructure
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Support rural and low-income urban areas with education, training, universal broadband access, and investment incentives to promote entrepreneurship and job creation
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Establish an independent agency to evaluate how each Artificial Intelligence initiative is promoting overall progress for ordinary Americans, such as improvements in skills, health, jobs and job quality
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Expand earning subsidies for low-wage workers with children
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Support workers’ rights to form, join and contribute to unions – and their rights not to
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Boost federal spending on basic research, and improve the pipeline from publicly funded research to commercialization
K-12 Eduation
THE PROBLEM
American educational performance, long among the worst in the developed world, has grown worse since Covid.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
Provide teachers with the training and resources to significantly boost their students’ learning. Hold teachers and schools to account for producing results. Incentivize parents to support their children’s education.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Revise educational goals and standards to include both academic and life skills, such as teamwork and resilience
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Reform teacher training and professional development to boost teachers’ performance
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Hold teachers and schools to account for students’ progress
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Significantly increase pay for more effective teachers
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Promote more instruction time, high expectations, frequent teacher feedback, tailoring instruction to students’ performance & tutoring as needed
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Develop programs to increase lower income parents’ support for their children’s learning
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Expand families’ opportunities to choose among public and charter schools
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Increase per-student support for under-resourced schools
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Help state and local education agencies build up their evaluation and research capabilities
Healthcare
THE PROBLEM
The US spends 18% of GDP on healthcare. Other developed countries spend 10%. Yet our health is the worst in the developed world.
We thereby squander at least $2.3 trillion each year - which boosts the national debt; and shortchanges long-term investments in education, skills training and economic opportunity.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
Stop paying doctors and other providers for the volume of tests and procedures they perform and, instead, pay for improving health outcomes at lower cost. Incentivize Americans to eat healthy foods.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Expand support for overall community health, especially in areas where providers lack incentives to go – rural and distressed communities
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Coordinate public education and increase funding for healthier lifestyles, nutrition and prevention, especially about obesity.
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Require each Medicare and Medicaid plan to - measurably - reduce costs and improve their patients’ health outcomes. And stop paying providers for each test and procedure they perform
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Support public and private providers that focus on producing the best health outcomes at the lowest cost (such as Kaiser Permanente)
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Expand free meals to low-income schools year round to ensure that poor children have access to nutritious foods
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Prevent any business from buying up a monopoly of health care providers in any region
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Expand federal price negotiations to manage the cost of pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs
Energy Policy
THE PROBLEM
The federal government subsidizes both fossil fuels and renewables, which wastes hundreds of billions of dollars annually. America thereby fritters away valuable resources, while allowing extreme weather to injure millions of families by harming their environment and weakening the economy.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
End wasteful subsidies, mandates and regulations. Encourage businesses, families, state governments and other countries to use energy efficiently. Reduce extreme droughts, floods, hurricanes, blizzards and wildfires by placing a market-based fee on carbon emissions. Transmit energy in ways that minimize the costs to consumers.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Repeal energy subsidies, regulations and legislation whose costs exceed the benefits
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Place a price on carbon emissions of at least $51 per ton. And cut income taxes accordingly on low-income and rural families
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To level the playing field with countries that do not put a price on carbon emissions, create a $51 per ton tariff on their products
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To reduce methane emissions, support reuse technologies and hold current and former owners of abandoned fossil fuel wells liable for capping those wells
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To move energy across state lines efficiently, increase Federal agencies’ authority to plan and issue permits for energy infrastructure, including transmission lines
Taxes
THE PROBLEM
Politicians from both parties routinely provide their strongest supporters with tax breaks, which boost the national debt and reward wasteful investments.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
Simplify the tax code by closing loopholes and broadening the base so we can lower rates and reduce distortions.
Reward businesses for investing in assets that will increase productivity and future income.
To pay for the benefits in health, education and economic opportunity described in earlier sections, raise taxes on those who can most afford it – and make entitlement spending more efficient.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Sharply reduce deductions, exclusions and credits that mostly help high-income families
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To encourage investment, allow businesses to deduct all expenses, including capital assets, but excluding interest, in the year paid
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To reduce evasion and promote exports, place a 6% value added tax (VAT) on goods and services at each point in the supply chain -- and rebate the amount to low-income consumers
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Boost Social Security’s cost-effectiveness by raising benefits for low earners, while slowing growth of benefits for high earners, and raise the retirement age for those who can still work
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End taxation distinctions between corporate and non-corporate businesses
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Tax the gains on capital assets when they are inherited, ending the ability to avoid such taxes
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Lower the size of estates exempt from tax (currently $30 million per couple)
Federal Spending & Debt
THE PROBLEM
The US government spends $6 per senior for every $1 on a child under 18; favors consumption over investing in the future; and gives tax breaks to favored interests. These policies will drive the federal debt to 120% of GDP by 2036, send interest rates soaring and hobble our economy.
THE PARTIAL SOLUTION
To push the debt below 100% of GDP by 2030 -- while also paying for improvements in economic mobility, health and education - the following ideas from earlier sections would, overall, yield $1 trillion annually in savings and revenue:
The Healthcare productivity reforms
Ending fossil fuel subsidies and putting a price on carbon
Slashing tax deductions for the well-off
The value added tax
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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To potentially save another $100 billion a year, invite former Secretaries of Defense from both parties to develop a plan for simultaneously increasing defense preparedness while cutting costs – and require Congress to vote the plan up-or-down
Congressional Reform
THE PROBLEM
To keep members of Congress from holding office for decades while our country’s problems grow worse, over 80% of Americans want term limits. This would require a constitutional amendment that 38 states would need to ratify. Yet just 16 state legislatures have term limits themselves. So, getting 38 states to move forward on federal term limits seems unlikely.
THE OVERALL PROPOSAL
Enact rules and laws that significantly lower lawmakers’ odds of winning reelection – unless they work out practical solutions for critical problems.
THE INDIVIDUAL PROPOSALS:
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Replace congressional committees divided along partisan lines with task forces designed to resolve problems by:
- Asking each group of lawmakers who share priorities on the task force's topic to choose a spokesperson
- Any spokesperson who wanted to advance their group's priorities would need to hash out differences with the others
- If the spokespeople reach an agreement, each could pitch it to their colleagues
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Enact legislation to open up primaries, so that every voter has a voice, and candidates across the spectrum compete on a level playing field
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Enact legislation to prohibit either party from drawing congressional districts to boost its odds winning elections
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Evaluate each reform: Critical to Me and Others - Good Idea - Not Sure - Dislike It - Hate It
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