Interconnected problems need interconnected solutions. They also need you.

America's challenges are entangled. That's the whole problem, and it's an opportunity.

Think about your body. Your heart, lungs, and stomach each have their own job, but they share one bloodstream. When one organ struggles, the others feel it. America works the same way. Our schools, hospitals, power grid, and businesses are the organs. Money is the blood, and it has to reach all of them.

When the blood flows well, schools have what they need to help kids grow. When it doesn't, classrooms go without. Healthcare costs drain family paychecks and a growing share of the federal budget. Energy policy shows up on your electric bill and in the air your kids breathe.

Congress is supposed to be the doctor, sending our tax dollars toward "the general welfare." Too often, it treats one symptom at a time, or pumps the blood to campaign donors while the rest of the body goes pale.

A good doctor doesn't fix your blood pressure and ignore your heart. She treats the whole patient. Our country deserves the same.

Sol Erdman, founder of the Grand Bargain Project, saw this years ago. He asked a bold question: What if we stopped trying to fix America's biggest problems one at a time? 

That idea became the Grand Bargain: seven aspirations woven together as 39 reforms. The team polled Americans and built the Launchpad, an online tool that shows the whole package at once.

Now the work has changed hands. Debilyn Molineaux steps in as Executive Director. "I'm grateful for Sol's imagination and his persistence. This project doesn't exist without both," she says. After twenty years in cross-partisan work, Molineaux knows this next stage can't belong to any one person or organization. It has to belong to a lot more of us.

The first chapter built the Grand Bargain. The next chapter hands it to the American people.

Hope isn't a plan. A bargain turns hope into a plan.

In 2023, the Center for Collaborative Democracy asked policy experts across the political spectrum to sketch a grand bargain. Their paper came out in mid-2024, and workshops and polling have since shaped it into seven aspirations:

• More economic opportunity

• Schools that help every child reach their potential

• Healthcare that works and that people can afford

• A national debt we can sustain

• Clean energy that's reliable and affordable

• A tax system that's fairer and simpler

• Congressional reforms that let Members solve problems

In our polling with YouGov, 73% of Americans said the Grand Bargain reforms represented the challenges and priorities that matter most. But wanting isn't governing. Governing means putting the costs on the table next to the benefits and deciding what you'll give up to get something you care about more.

That's bargaining. Every family does it. A new car payment means less for entertainment. A trip to the ER means the vacation waits. You can't spend the same dollar twice, and neither can the country. The federal budget is a family budget with a lot more zeros, and Congress has forgotten how to sit at the kitchen table to make it work.

This is our North Star.

The American people shape an interconnected plan for governing. Policy experts from across the spectrum sharpen it. Citizens weigh in again. Then we carry it to Congress as a legislative package, with citizens behind it and pushing.

We have a head start: 39 reforms, two years of public-opinion research, and a platform built for hard choices. But we're not assuming today's Grand Bargain is the one America needs.

Policy shouldn't be a one-way street.

In the coming months, we'll work with partner organizations whose members already practice deliberation in civic hubs and citizen assemblies. On the website Launchpad tool, thousands of people will dig into the Grand Bargain and tell us:

• What do you care about most?

• Where do you hesitate?

• What did we miss?

• When does a shiny idea lose its shine once you see the price tag?

• When would you accept something you don't like because the bigger deal is worth it?

That last question matters. A bargain doesn't ask you to love every piece. It asks whether, on balance, the whole package is better.

Then we listen. What people tell us shapes the next draft, and we share the results back. It's a wheel that keeps turning, not a survey that disappears into a drawer.

Then a cross-partisan team of policy specialists, economists, and civic leaders tests what citizens want against hard realities: cost, side effects, the budget, and how a bill actually moves through Congress. Then it comes back to citizens, and we ask again: Is this worth it?

The next three years

First, evidence. We'll publish what our YouGov research reveals about Americans' common ground and build a team of spokespeople from different regions, generations, and politics. Not party mouthpieces. Real people.

In six months, a partner network will bring thousands of people onto the Launchpad. In one year, a real feedback loop will be running. After that, broad goals become detailed policies, and a Grand Bargain Policy Team turns them into a Grand Bargain Agenda for Governing: a serious, budget-grounded, cross-partisan package a future Congress could actually pass. Maybe as soon as 2028.

Fear is easy. Hope takes work.

Fear sells. Anger sells. Division is profitable. But you can't build a country on any of them. We believe most Americans want a country where people can build good lives and Congress solves problems instead of staging our fights for the nightly news.

Our problems are connected. Our lives are connected. Our future is connected. It's time our politics caught up.

Three years from now

We want thousands of Americans to see their own fingerprints on the Grand Bargain. The questions they raised. The tradeoffs they pushed back on. The compromise they accepted because something else mattered more.

Then citizen advocates will carry it to Congress through town halls and call-in days. Not as demands from the left or the right, but from We the People: shaped by citizens, strengthened by experts, and carried by Americans willing to stand up for it.

The first chapter proved connected solutions are possible. Now we build them, together.

Want to partner with us, refer others, or fund this work? Get in touch.