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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
Whichever party controls Congress enacts each law to satisfy its strongest supporters typically on one issue at a time, while neglecting other interests and subjects.
Current policies thereby clash, wasting trillions of dollars while letting our chronic ills grow worse.
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 35 reforms,
that would yield historic progress in all six areas, and cost less than current policies.
GRAND BARGAIN
GRAND BARGAIN
GRAND BARGAIN
Proof of Concept
In a recent YouGov survey of a demographically representative sample of citizens, 71 percent preferred the Grand Bargain package over America’s current direction. To put that number in perspective, no president in history has retained that level of support.
That support extends to 45 states. In this map, yellow = 50% support; red = <50; green = >50. One caveat: In states with less than 1,000,000 residents, the sample size is too small to be reliable.
To capitalize on the public’s receptivity, the Grand Bargain Project is launching four initiatives:
Building an Exponentially Growing Movement
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 roadmap for the future that we will deliver to political leaders as representing the will of the America people.
Braver Angels and others will also host workshops in which participants deliberate over the evolving plan.
Various Rotary Clubs, and other civic groups are working with us to incorporate the Grand Bargain into their community-building programs.
To mobilize the 100+ million “exhausted majority” who hunger for a better future — but lack the tools to affect change — we will soon distribute the Grand Bargain App that enables any citizen to give us feedback about the evolving roadmap.
We thereby intend to energize a Movement for Positive Change.
To members of the congressional majority alarmed about the national debt, tariffs, economic discontent or growing divisiveness, we will make the following case:
Given your party’s slim majority in both chambers, 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 seats, 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 over 70% of Americans would prefer the total package over the country’s current direction.