Blueprint for Democracy

 Introduction

In 2023, the right-wing Heritage Foundation published a document entitled Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Promise, or “Project 2025,” which spelled out what the (horrible) policies and priorities of the next Republican administration would be.  

While many of the proposals set forth in Project 2025 were unpopular, so much so that the Trump campaign had to disavow knowledge of them, Project 2025 is now clearly the roadmap for the actual policies of Trump’s administration.

The progressive response to Trump thus far has been disjointed and ineffective, in large part because progressives have not spelled out their vision of the future ofthe country and have instead mostly confined themselves to criticizing Trump’s unpopular and destructive policies.

While there is nothing wrong with criticizing Trump, there needs to be a clear vision of what the country would look like under progressive, future-oriented leadership.  The goal of this paper is to outline some key features of that vision, with the goal of presenting it to elected leaders who can convert these ideas to positive political action.

Government that Works for Everybody

Progressives should offer the voters a government that works for everybody and that delivers services that make life better and easier for ordinary working Americans.  The policies of that government should deliver:

·       Living wages for all workers

·       Quality public schools for all children

·       Universal access to health care

·       A clean and climate-friendly environment

·       An end to massive wealth and income inequality

·       Elected officials who work for their voters, not their funders

·       A fair and impartial judicial and criminal justice system

·       A renewed commitment to freedoms of speech, religion and association

·       Checks and balances to remove public officials who abuse their offices

  Making Government Work

Progressives should reject the false notion that government can only be a burden on its citizens and that getting rid of it would somehow make all of us better off.  

To the contrary, good government is indispensable to the economic and social progress of our country, and we cannot afford to have it run by incompetent sycophants whose only qualification is loyalty to the President.

Progressives should also reject the right-wing myth that we cannot afford a government that serves us.  The fact is that we can afford whatever level of government that best serves us, not whatever government we can pay for after granting massive tax cuts to the wealthy.

The U.S. is one of the richest countries in the world, having a GDP per capita of nearly $89k per year versus around$47k for the rest of the OECD and $6k or less in much of the developing world.  

Meanwhile, our taxes are among the lowest of any developed country -- the sum of Federal taxes plus state and local taxes is around 25% of GDP, versus an average of 33% for the rest of the OECD, and we have the greatest wealth and income inequality of any developed country except South Africa.  

In short, we have the resources to decide what level and quality of government services we want and then raise taxes to whatever level is needed to pay for them – and still be tax competitive with the rest of the developed world.  In our country, poorly funded government agencies are a political choice, not a necessity.  

As for efficiency, good leadership will recognize that the government is a service organization which should be run in much the same, customer-focused way as a successful service business.  

Each government agency or department should be required to identify the people and organizations to which it renders services –business managers call this the target audience. The questions that should drive the management of each agency or department should be:

1.    Who do we serve?

2.    What do we do for them?

3.    What aren’t we doing that we should be doing?

4.    What are we doing that our customers don’t need or which could be better done somewhere else?

To implement this, each department or agency should organize a liaison committee consisting of representatives of the groups who use its services. For example, the FAA liaison committee should include users such as pilots, airlines, airport managers, aircraft manufacturers, air traffic controllers, air transport service and support vendors, and representatives for the traveling public.

Each agency should meet regularly with its liaison committee for input on what is working, what is not working and what needs to be changed. While this process will be incremental and slow, the result of management along these lines will be better service to the people the agency serves.

It is entirely possible, if not likely, that some government departments will not survive this review process and be eliminated. The difference between this and the slash-and-burn policies of the Trump administration is that the elimination of departments will be based on whether they successfully serve the public, and not on whether they cater to the cultural biases of the administration.

Important Policies

The specific policies of a progressive administration would all start from the idea that the goal is to better serve the public rather than move ahead on some ideological agenda.  Some key policies would be:

Immigration

The immigration policies of a progressive administration would confirm the need for border security while recognizing that immigrants who are already here as well as new arrivals are crucial to our survival and prosperity as a country.  Specific policies should include:

·       Border Security

There should be adequate staffing and funding of Homeland Security to maintain effective security at all borders and to eliminate or minimize as far as possible unauthorized entry into the country.  This should be coupled with other policies that will remove the incentives for illegal entry over time.

·       Deportation of Undesirables

The government should continue to seek deportation of the relatively few immigrants with criminal records or who pose material security risks; provided, however, that potential deportees should be granted basic due process to determine whether there are sufficient grounds for their deportation.  Due process is important not only for their protection, but to protect all of us against arbitrary government action.

·       Legalization of Resident Immigrants

The government should issue green cards with a path to citizenship over five years to immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S. for a substantial amount of time, who have no criminal records and who have not been previously deported.  While some will denounce this as an amnesty (it is), this policy will simply acknowledge the reality that immigrants who are already here are an important part of the workforce, pay taxes and make positive contributions to our country.  Deporting all of them would not be a good idea because it would hurt them and hurt the rest of us who rely on their services.

·       E-Verify

All employers should be required to adopt the E-verify system or something similar under which no one who is in the country without authorization will be allowed to work. This will eliminate the main incentive for illegal border crossings and should reduce illegal crossings over time.

·       TemporaryVisas

Finally, there should be temporary visa programs which are realistic in terms of jobs which cannot be filled with domestic workers. These include such jobs as seasonal agricultural workers, ski area workers and workers in other seasonal industries. We should also continueto have visa programs for highly skilled technical workers for jobs which cannot be filled with domestic applicants. These visa programs be designed to block the issuance of visas toimmigrant workers for jobs that can be filled with domestic applicants.

Taxation

The current tax code should be drasticallysimplified by eliminating special treatment for substantially all types ofincome, such as capital gains, employer-paid health benefits, personal itemizeddeductions, oil and gas depletion allowances, and everything else whichcurrently receives preferential tax treatment.

These changes may be sufficient bythemselves to raise enough revenue to support popular programs, but if notthere should be some modest rate increases on high income taxpayers. The current tax code yields collections of around $4 trillion per year, nearly $2trillion short of the government’s budget of $6 trillion, and that is clearly notsustainable.

Filing thresholds should be adjusted so that lower and middle income people are not required to file tax returns. Their liability would be satisfied with withholdings on most income sources.

Estate and gift taxes should be abolished since they are complex, generate enormous compliance costs and raisesubstantially no revenue (0.6% of total Federal receipts). Instead,inheritances above some threshold, e.g., $1 million per person, should be subject to income tax when they are received. Inheritances of illiquid assets,such as farms and businesses would be taxable only when sold or otherwisemonetized (e.g., used as collateral for loans) or over an extended period,e.g., 15 years, as is currently done with the estate tax.

Medicare taxes that finance the Medicare program should be removed from the payroll tax and added to the income tax because there are no work requirements for Medicare and because there is no reason whythe cost of the program should come only from workers’ salaries. Citizens who have so much money that they do not need to work can qualify for Medicare and should contribute too.  

Health Care

There should be a national single-payer system under which basic health care for all Americans is financed with tax revenue, much as Medicare is now.   The reasons for doing this are simple, namely –

(1) everybody would be covered, and

(2) the cost of the system would likely be much less than the cost of the fragmented system we have now.  Total health care spending in the U.S. is closeto 18% of GDP, versus an average 12% or less for other developed countries.  

Under this system health provider groups would be asked to offer care plans meeting minimum specifications and would be paid by the government for their services at a fixed amount per enrollee.

To encourage competition, there would be no restrictions on offering plans across state lines.  Provider groups would ideally be organized as cooperatives or nonprofits which would credit any revenues in excess of expenses to their enrollees.  

Enrollees would be allowed to change plans once a year, so that if they are unhappy with the care they receive, they would have the opportunity to change plans. Enrollees could also purchase coverage for additional services not covered by the entry-level, government financed plan.

There should be new rules governing the pricing of pharmaceuticals which require pharmaceutical companies to sell their products at prices which are equal to or less than the prices they charge for the same drugs in other countries. Currently, U.S. consumers may pay two or in some cases 10 times or more than what consumers in other countries pay for the same medications. If the companies need good profit margins to finance research and development, they need to adjust their pricing globally so that U.S. consumers are not stuck with paying for most of the R&D.

Social Security

Social Security as currently structured is funded with a 12.4% payroll tax that applies to the “wage base,” which as of 2026 is $184,500 per year.  Current estimates are that revenues from this tax will not be sufficient to pay full program benefits beyond 2035.

For the short term at least we should eliminate the cap on taxable wages so that all wages are subject to tax at the same rate.  This would likely allow the program to pay full benefits for the next 75 years.  This seems fair, since the result would be that an executive making $1 million per year would pay tax at the same rate as a middle manager making $150,000.  Under the current system, the middle manager pays 12.4% of his wages in tax whereas the executive pays 2.3% (12.4% of the wage base or $22,878/$1,000,000).  Unless the need to avoid tax increases on high earners is critical, there is no obvious need to cut social security benefits.

Constitutional changes

It is clear by now that we cannot continue to run a 21st century country with an 18th century constitution and that substantial changes are needed in our constitutional structure.

We must remember that our constitution is not a sacred document like the Bible, the Torah or the Quran. It is a political document designed to solve the political challenges of 1789 and needs updating to meet our current needs.

The constitution provides that representation in the House of Representatives is based on population (one person one vote) but that the the Senate consists of two senators from each state, regardless of size. The result is that the Senate is grossly malapportioned, with half 1 million people in Wyoming having the same number of senators as 40 million people in California. In view of this, the Senate should either be restructured or abolished unless there is some justification for having the states as legal entities represented in the national government. The Senate was the result of a political compromise needed to get the constitution signed in 1789 but makes no sense now, and we would probably be better off without it.

Similarly, the electoral college system was a political compromise with the slave states that got the constitution signed in 1789 but has no obvious justification at this time. Presidential elections should be won by the person who receives the most votes.

Changes are also needed to reduce the influence of money in politics. Since most political contributions are spent onre-election campaigns, the influence of money could most effectively be reduced by term limits, under which representatives would be elected for somewhat longer terms, e.g., four years, and not be eligible for re-election.  

Representatives would then be free to work for the good of their constituents rather than for those who fund their re-election campaigns.  They could also spend all their time on legislative and political activities rather than spending half or more of it on fund-raising as they currently do.  

Further, constitutional changes are needed to prohibit large organizations such as corporations and labor unions from making political contributions, place strict limits on personal contributions and provide for public financing of political campaigns. Super PACs should be illegal, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United should be overruled.

Foreign policy

Foreign policy should recognize that we live in an integrated world, and that our strength, security and prosperity ultimately depend on our ability to form alliances with countries that share our values.

This means among other things that we should do as much as we can to reinforce alliances with our most important trading partners, i.e., Canada, and Mexico, as well as with European nations who embrace freedom and democratic values.

With respect to our other important trading partner, China, we should seek relationships which are constructive but at the same time limit what we do in ways that protect our strategic interests.

Among other things, we should develop alternate sources of strategic resources, e.g. battery components, and diversify our supply chains as much as possible to avoid dependence on China for critical inputs. We should also use tariffs to protect ourselves from unfair trading practices, for which the Chinese are well known, and do as much as we can to limit the unlawful use of our intellectual property.

In developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, we should make strategic use of foreign aid to build relationships with these countries, particularly with those that are able to help us with supplies of strategic materials.  The current administration’s recent decision to shut down USAID is idiotic because it sacrifices influence around the globe that was being purchased with a minimal amount of money.

 Judiciary

The role of the judiciary should be to interpret and apply laws, not make them. The systematic use of the judiciary by politicians on both sides to make laws that cannot get through the political process should be regarded as abusive and indicative of the need for substantial reform.

First, lifetime appointments of judges at all levels should be revisited and probably change to fixed terms of 10 or 15 years. This change would simply acknowledge that people today live much longer than they did in 1789.

Second, the terms of Supreme Court justices should be staggered, so that opportunities for new appointments come up regularly, and so that each administration has the opportunity to nominate justices.

Third, there should be a strict code of ethics that applies to all judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, under which serious ethical violations will result in removal.  The code should be administered by a panel of judges chosen by other judges, perhaps by judges nominated by the Federal appellate courts.  

Lastly, there should be a process by which decisions of the highest court can be reviewed and overturned by Congress, perhaps by a 2/3 majority.  This would reinforce the concept that the role of the courts is to interpret and enforce laws, not make them, and would prevent the courts from decreeing policies which are broadly unpopular with the voting public.

Executive Branch

Policies regarding the executive branch should be strengthened to make it clear that the President is not a king and that his duty is to carry out the laws of the country, not make them.  

It is possible that rehabilitating Congress will solve this problem, but if not then we should consider putting teeth in the impeachment process – e.g., by making impeachments triable by a special court (not the Senate) and providing that certain actions, e.g., failing to obey court orders or fomenting an insurrection, are presumptively impeachable.

Environmental Protection

Leadership should recognize that climate change is a serious threat and should do everything possible to mitigate the effects of a warming planet.   While we cannot control what the rest of the world does we can lead by example, and the time for doing this has long since come.  Specifically we should:

·       Build or finance the building of infrastructure for electric vehicles as rapidly as possible.

·       Promote the creation of new, carbon-free sources of electric power, including wind, solar, nuclear and any other sources of new energy that can be identified.

·       Consider carbon taxes which charge users of fossil fuels for at least some of the social cost of the greenhouse gases they generate.

·       Remove current subsidies for oil and gas from the tax code.

·       Adopt efficiency standards for everything that uses power, from autos to homes to dishwashers.  The easiest way to generate more energy is to use less of it.  

Education

Free, quality public education through high school should be the right of every child. We should:

·       Provide extra financial support for schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and we should oppose all efforts to defund the public schools.  Quality education should not be the privilege reserved for the children of wealthy parents.

·       Adopt policies under which the government pays for at least two years of education after high school for every young adult (college or trade school).  

·       Consider policies under which professionals in short supply (e.g., family doctors) can receive free or low-cost graduate school education, perhaps in exchange for a period of public service.  The military currently provides medical training on this basis.  

Criminal Justice

The death penalty should be abolished as it has been nearly everywhere else, not only because it is barbaric and unfair but because it does not deter crime.  Prisons should focus on rehab programs that reduce their recidivism rates, not just punishment.  There should be an ongoing review of whether low-level, non-violent drug offenders should continue to be incarcerated.

Voting Rights

Our policies should be to make voting as easy as possible and to eliminate all laws that impair access to the vote or which otherwise limit the ability of voters to choose their political leaders.  Gerrymandering should be illegal and district lines should be drawn by independent redistricting commissions.  We should consider making at least important national elections legal holidays so that working people can vote.

Culture War Issues

Right-wing politicians have successfully used culture war issues like DEI, critical race theory and anti-LGBTQ pronouncements to divide voters, divert attention from their unpopular policy agenda, and obscure facts which they find damaging or politically inconvenient.

Progressive leaders should respond to these diversions not by taking positions but by asking questions that call out these so-called issues for what they are -- diversions.  

For people who say they are against DEI, ask “well, what would you replace it with? Do you think that hiring policies which ignore whole groups of people are good for business? If you agree that opportunities should be open to everybody, then what’s your problem? What difference is eliminating DEI going to make in your life?  Is it going to make your groceries cheaper?

On transgender issues:  How many transgender people do you know(usually zero)?  Are transgender women dominating women’s sports?  Do you or I really know how well they perform in the military? And who would be the best judge of that – maybe unit commanders responsible for combat readiness rather than the President or the Secretary of Defense?

On critical race theory: Do you understand what critical race theory is? [Hint – anything approaching an honest account of slavery and Jim Crow in this country]  If you don’t know what it is then why are you against it?  Don’t you think that we should teach our children what has happened in our country, rather than what we wish had happened?  Do you think we might damage their fragile young psyches by telling them the truth, or are we just being cowards about our own history?

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the government is a service organization which should provide services to the taxpayers who support it in the most responsive and cost-effective way possible.  The test of good government should not be whether it is large or small or red or blue, but whether it the right size and organized the right way to meet the needs of the taxpayers who pay for it.  

Ideologues who approach governance problems with pre-existing beliefs should be sidelined in favor of people who are committed to public service, willing to leave their ideology at the front door and pursue policies that work for their constituents.  It is the author’s hope and belief that many of the policies of a forward-looking, future-oriented government will look at least a little like the policies discussed above.

 Chris Toews

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