A living working document. These proposals may change as the work develops.
A modern framework for a government that serves its people.
Generations of Americans have fought to make this country more free, more fair, and more accountable. That work belongs to us now. America OS brings together specific proposals to confront corruption, put political power in people’s hands, and build justice into the way government works.
Limit campaign funding and conflicts; make room for candidates without personal wealth.
Elect representatives, vote on consequential development, and hold officials accountable.
Define responsibilities, audit service costs, and measure results.
Explore the proposals below, or follow an idea into more detail. Further-developed ideas come first in each section. “Still taking shape” holds early proposals and unanswered questions. Development does not mean a proposal has been proven or its implementation completed.
81 ideas and questions across 10 themes
Campaign funding, investment conflicts, and the financial incentives of public office.
Public decisions should answer to people rather than access to corporate money.
End corporate lobbying and corporate donations or other transfers of money to politicians. Includes indirect transfers and sham entities.
Read the full idea →Personal investments can create conflicts with the responsibilities of public office.
Ban politicians from making stock-market or real-estate investments while holding office. Existing holdings, covered officials and exceptions remain open.
Read the full idea →A contribution limit aims to constrain influence purchased through large donations.
Limit individual campaign donations to $10,000 per person. Period and per-candidate versus aggregate scope remain open.
Read the full idea →Public authority should not be purchased through campaign financing or political access.
End the unlimited-funding Super PAC model and restrict politician–PAC affiliations. Protect independent expression and citizen organizing; paid-advertising and coordination boundaries still need design.
Read the full idea →Public service should connect officials’ material incentives to the lives of ordinary workers, while remaining accessible to people without independent wealth.
Set federal legislators’ pay using national median worker earnings adjusted for regional prices in the state they represent. Use state worker earnings for state officials and local worker earnings for local officials. The goal is an ordinary worker’s living standard without an arbitrary premium. Federal national median adjusted for represented-state prices; state/local earnings baselines. Statistical and expense rules remain open.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Voters deserve a fair chance to hear substantive policy choices.
Give candidates a fair opportunity to explain their ideas and encourage policy-focused debate. Government power must remain bounded and justified; equalizing independent influence is not the objective.
Read the full idea →Gifts and future employment can create conflicts separate from campaign donations.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Strengthen rules concerning gifts, conflicts of interest and lobbying after public service. This remains a supporting reform proposal. Covered officials, restrictions, enforcement and transition have not been selected. Supporting reform family; exact restrictions unselected.
Read the full idea →Lawmakers need dependable evidence when evaluating complicated proposals.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Provide strong nonpartisan legislative research staff. This supporting institutional proposal needs decisions on independence, access, staffing, funding and accountability; researchers would support elected lawmakers rather than decide policy. Supporting institutional proposal, not a settled staffing program.
Read the full idea →Who can run, how people participate, and how representation is earned and exercised.
Public office should remain responsive to voters rather than become an indefinite personal career.
Establish term limits. Favor four-year Senate terms, with Senate elections alongside presidential elections. Term length, election timing, total service limits and leadership tenure are related choices, but each requires an explicit rule. Four-year Senate terms favored. Same-cycle model and 12-year chamber, combined lifetime and six-year leadership limits remain options.
Read the full idea →Ballot access should depend on verified support, including for late entrants.
Use exclusive individual endorsements as the primary candidate-qualification criterion, followed by a minimum number of unique verified donors. Each eligible person in the relevant electorate may endorse one candidate per race during a declared qualification window. Any positive donation can count; there is no minimum dollar contribution. Every candidate, including a late entrant, must meet the same exclusive-endorsement and unique-verified-donor criteria to appear on the ballot. Entering late provides no lower-threshold route. Same criteria for all ballot candidates, including late entrants. No minimum donation amount; numerical thresholds remain open.
Read the full idea →People need an accessible way to evaluate candidates’ actual positions and records without relying solely on advertising or a simplified label.
Provide an official, searchable federal candidate website covering everyone who meets the initial qualifying criteria. Show understandable positions on important topics and actual voting records where available. Offer optional matching between a person’s beliefs and candidates’ stated policies. Positions, actual records and optional belief matching are selected. Transparency, scoring and privacy safeguards remain working proposals.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
An initial opportunity to be heard should not depend on personal fortune.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
A working campaign model would give qualifying candidates equal starting grants, followed by one to three debates featuring all qualifiers. Candidates could then raise individual contributions at their own pace up to a common ceiling. Equal starting resources would not require identical final spending. A voluntary contribution pool could fund the starting grants before contributions flow to donors’ chosen candidates. A familiar framework should inform state and local elections, whose detailed design remains with states and communities. Initial grant, one to three debates, then individual fundraising under a ceiling; voluntary pool and deadlines require design.
Read the full idea →A winning candidate may lack support from a majority when several candidates divide the vote.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Consider majority-winning elections using ranked choice or runoffs. This remains an electoral-method proposal, separate from term limits and qualification for initial campaign support. Ranked choice or runoffs are alternatives, not a final method.
Read the full idea →Participation should fit people’s lives without sacrificing election integrity, privacy, or access.
Develop digital, online and ultimately paperless participation, including verified endorsements and remote election participation. Verify identity and citizenship for eligible citizens’ electoral participation. Use a familiar, repeatable framework across national, state, and local elections while preserving local design authority. Online/paperless goal; no secure implementation selected. Identity/citizenship verification must preserve ballot secrecy.
Read the full idea →State representation must fit a system of empowered existing communities.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
A population-based chamber could be paired with a second chamber representing local jurisdictions. Its earlier Council of Districts design needs reconsideration now that cities and rural governments can exercise local authority directly. Equal versus population-weighted representation remains undecided; neither chamber would gain general control over protected local policy. The chamber’s design and legal route require constitutional review. Earlier Council of Districts design needs revision; equal versus population weighting unresolved.
Read the full idea →Local autonomy should not automatically create overlapping Senate representation.
An earned Federal Commonwealth path to Senate representation requires redesign and constitutional review. Local autonomy or merger does not automatically create Senate seats, and overlapping Senate votes must be avoided. No automatic Senate seats on local autonomy or merger. Federal Commonwealth design and thresholds are proposals.
Read the full idea →The way presidential votes become a national result is a foundational design choice.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Role, retention, replacement or abolition remains unselected.
Read the full idea →District boundaries shape representation and require safeguards against manipulation.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Who draws lines, standards, safeguards and review remain open.
Read the full idea →Control over individual contributions, the tax base, and relief for early earnings.
A compulsory payment does not establish personal ethical approval of every expenditure.
Give every person full direction over their own attributable tax contribution at every level of government. Preserve binding exclusions. A local majority’s approval of a project does not authorize dissenters’ money. Assistance to other communities remains voluntary; unequal wealth alone does not create a duty to redistribute funds. All levels, enforceable exclusions, no majority override or adopted compulsory baseline.
Read the full idea →Owning property should not require recurring payments merely to keep it.
Eliminate recurring property taxes, including more than a primary-home exemption. Broader than a primary-home exemption; scope and replacement funding require design.
Read the full idea →Investment-income taxation is distinct from relief on income earned through work.
Eliminate taxes on dividends and capital gains at every age. Separate from work-income relief; other income categories and state implementation remain open.
Read the full idea →Early earnings can give people room to save, build a business and establish a household.
$500,000 annual federal eligible-income allowance before 30, ordinary brackets on excess, tax-saving taper ages 30–35; payroll taxes deferred.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
The tax base should reflect the framework’s preference for consumption over ownership and earnings.
Prefer shifting most taxation toward consumption, especially harmful products, alongside the specific federal income-tax reform below. Complete income-tax abolition is not part of the current framework. Especially harmful products; no selected rates, rebates or proven revenue sufficiency.
Read the full idea →Local decisions within shared protections for individual rights.
Local self-government can bring decisions closer to people, but proximity alone does not protect a minority from coercion.
Every government must respect a common constitutional floor of individual rights. Marriage, including same-sex marriage, is a protected individual freedom rather than a discretionary local prohibition. Includes voting rights and marriage protection; federal enforcement is not exclusive administration.
Read the full idea →Delegating power is incomplete if some residents lack a responsible local government or if local autonomy requires accepting an unnecessary new layer of government.
Give cities, villages, suitable towns and townships, rural municipalities or districts, and voluntarily consolidated governments the same baseline right to local self-government. Every resident must belong to a jurisdiction responsible for the defined local powers. A district is not a mandatory layer above cities. Existing cities, villages, suitable townships and rural coverage; no compulsory district layer.
Read the full idea →Communities should decide everyday policy within a common floor of individual rights.
Delegate lifestyle policy locally wherever possible. Federal officials cannot override a valid local policy merely because they disagree. Bounded by individual rights; no federal override merely from disagreement.
Read the full idea →Home residence alone should not punish conduct lawful and wholly carried out elsewhere.
People should be free to travel for conduct lawful and carried out entirely in another jurisdiction. A home jurisdiction cannot punish that conduct merely because the person lives there. Home residence alone cannot justify punishing conduct lawful and wholly carried out elsewhere.
Read the full idea →Shared services can solve common problems without transferring unrelated local power.
Keep local autonomy, regional cooperation, and voluntary governmental merger distinct. Communities may share services or choose one government for agreed responsibilities. Cooperation does not transfer unrelated policy powers.
Read the full idea →Communities should be able to choose a common government without forced consolidation.
A community may decline a merger without blocking willing neighbors, provided all residents retain accountable representation. Distinct from shared services and local autonomy; communities can decline their own merger.
Read the full idea →National responsibilities need capable institutions with explicit limits.
Federal responsibilities include defense; citizenship, immigration and borders; interstate and international commerce with close state coordination; federal courts; interstate infrastructure and environmental matters linked to research and technology; federal-court resolution of state-boundary disputes; and emergencies beyond regional capacity. Research, technological advancement, constitutional-rights protection, and investigative capability are primary national functions. Defense, borders, commerce, courts, rights, research and cross-regional functions; remaining assignments unresolved.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Some systems span communities and need clearly bounded shared authority.
States retain defined shared responsibilities and useful scientific and technical capacity while surrendering general control over subjects reserved to local communities. Watersheds, grids and other shared systems are a working inventory. The broad state role is selected; precise assignments and jurisdiction remain open.
Read the full idea →Calling a problem national should not substitute for explaining authority and necessity.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Require a specific constitutional basis, a justified national purpose, proportional scope, and public costs and outcomes. Keep government authority bounded and reviewable.
Read the full idea →Residents need continuing influence after a government or charter is first established.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Working proposal: Establish accessible procedures for charter changes, resident initiatives, government removal, and later mergers or separation, with predictable treatment of obligations. A vote to form a government establishes initial consent; continuing resident influence requires its own rules. Charter changes, initiatives, removal and later separation/merger procedures; no final mechanisms.
Read the full idea →Shared responsibility does not establish how infrastructure reliability and access will improve.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Substantive reliability/access policy beyond assignment of shared responsibilities.
Read the full idea →Authority over commerce does not decide the substance of trade policy.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Commerce responsibility is assigned; actual international/interstate policy requires development.
Read the full idea →International commitments need defined purposes, powers and public accountability.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Diplomacy, treaties, civilian aid, sanctions and institutions.
Read the full idea →A federal border assignment does not settle entry, citizenship, asylum or enforcement policy.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Entry, citizenship, asylum, enforcement and due process beyond federal assignment.
Read the full idea →Distinct sovereign relationships and obligations must be understood before proposing changes.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Distinct authorities, obligations and affected communities; no automatic redrawing.
Read the full idea →Emergency capability needs boundaries, reliable funding and independent review.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Broader emergency capability, powers, thresholds, duration and review remain open. The agency-reserve proposal uses a selected federal budget definition; no FEMA replacement is chosen.
Read the full idea →The authority to manage public money, the cost of services, and responsibility for financial failure.
Consequences should reach the agencies and decision-makers responsible for material failure.
Apply three strikes to material financial failures and serious or repeated legal violations attributable to an individual agency. Establish causation first, then require correction, outside supervision and, if recovery fails, restructuring or dissolution with essential services protected.
Read the full idea →Unwilling outsiders should not inherit reckless or concealed losses.
Local governments retain their own budgets, debts, pensions, treasuries, and independent audits; unwilling outsiders should not cover reckless or concealed losses. Local budgets, debts and pensions; protecting people differs from rescuing a balance sheet.
Read the full idea →A budget must credibly fund the work it requires, with responsibility for changes made clear.
Approve agency duties and their funding together. A lower budget needs credible savings or an explicit change in scope; the same output cannot simply be assumed at a lower cost. Track commitments and forecasts before excess obligations arise.
Read the full idea →Delivery arrangements should be judged by results, full costs and accountability.
Public, nonprofit, and other arrangements require comparison; no operator type is preferred automatically. Outsourcing is optional only when it improves full cost, quality, and accountability. No automatic private/nonprofit preference; equivalent accountability and audit access.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Existing public obligations require a workable budget rather than an assumed clean slate.
Prioritize balancing budgets and making public finances workable rather than assuming the debt slate can be wiped clean. No general debt reset is selected. No general debt reset; lawful restructuring remains an option.
Read the full idea →Protect emergency capacity, then share genuinely unused funds equally with agency employees.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Target an additional reserve equal to 20% of the operating budget. After emergency needs and obligations are checked, share half of the unused balance equally among all federal employees in the agency and carry half forward. Replenish only the shortfall; this is not a guaranteed annual bonus.
Read the full idea →Voluntary funding deserves examination without assuming it can pay every public bill.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Working proposals: Extend personal allocation accounts to the relevant local government and any agreed shared services. Publish costed service proposals, providers, maintenance needs, minimum funding levels, and delivery milestones. Restricted contributions could be held until a project is viable, with disclosed return or reallocation rules. Willing residents could make multiyear commitments for continuing services. Multiyear commitments, project viability accounts, donations, endowments, nonprofits and net commercial earnings; no guaranteed returns.
Read the full idea →Money and financial institutions require a coherent stability and accountability framework.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Probable federal currency assignment; monetary/banking architecture not selected.
Read the full idea →How care is financed, how outcomes are verified, and how patients are protected.
A lower bill is not a success if it comes from denying necessary care, shifting costs, or weakening future capacity.
Pay for verified readiness, fund necessary care, and reward independently verified health, function, and safety at the lowest sustainable total cost. Pursue resource efficiency and constraints on excessive prices together. Use need-adjusted population care budgets and stable, competitive clinician salaries. One coherent payment system: risk-adjusted budgets, clinician pay, catastrophic protection, independent outcomes, safe shared savings and patient safeguards.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Pharmaceutical promotion raises a separate policy question from how necessary healthcare is paid for and evaluated.
End pharmaceutical advertising. The direction is selected; its exact scope is not. Consumer prescription-drug versus all-pharmaceutical scope remains unresolved.
Read the full idea →Healthcare payment reform does not settle prevention, pharmaceutical research or product standards.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Prevention/mental health, humane facilities, research conflicts/liability and supplement standards.
Read the full idea →Ownership, resident development decisions, and routes to economic independence.
Residential ownership rules shape who can buy and keep a home.
Reserve residential ownership for individual citizens rather than institutional or large corporate portfolios, impose a meaningful ownership cap, and require affected large holders to divest. Give residents binding authority to approve or reject consequential private development and to choose their community’s growth and character. Individual citizen ownership; approximately 20 units is an example, 50% price change an ambition, neither a final cap nor forecast.
Read the full idea →Residents need meaningful authority over consequential changes to their community.
Reserve residential ownership for individual citizens rather than institutional or large corporate portfolios, impose a meaningful ownership cap, and require affected large holders to divest. Give residents binding authority to approve or reject consequential private development and to choose their community’s growth and character. Separate from ownership reform; voting design open and no universal local affordability mandate.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
A framework for wellbeing must address barriers to improvement while recognizing differences in ability, circumstances, preferences, and community choices.
Help people find practical routes out of poverty and expect effort from those able to contribute. Communities may choose different services and outcomes. Greater wealth alone creates no general duty to equalize another community’s resources. Work-capacity constraints require design; no adopted sanctions or guaranteed equal outcomes.
Read the full idea →Executive and worker compensation merit a separate examination from public officials’ pay.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
These questions do not establish an adopted cash-payment policy, universal basic income, or executive-pay ceiling. A maximum executive-to-lowest-worker compensation ratio was raised as a possible design, with 50, 100, and 200 times discussed as examples; no ratio was selected. A ratio ceiling is exploratory; 50/100/200 examples were not selected. Distinct from congressional pay.
Read the full idea →Local authority alone does not settle how education is funded or delivered.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
School funding, choice, standards, special education, vocational and higher education.
Read the full idea →Support systems must account for age, disability, caregiving and unmet needs.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Social Security and Medicare deferred; unmet needs and contribution constraints require inquiry.
Read the full idea →Work, enterprise and consumer protections need substantive policy beyond an allocation of powers.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Pay, safety, bargaining, licensing, entrepreneurship and protections; allocation of authority open.
Read the full idea →Land, water, agriculture, and the ability to care for the places people live.
People depend on resilient soil, water, habitats and biodiversity.
Make ecosystem enhancement a core objective. Restore waterways, native fields and forests, habitat, and biodiversity; reduce invasive species as far as practicable. Waterways, native habitats, forests and biodiversity; ecological measurement is an implementation mechanism.
Read the full idea →Conventional appearance rules should not defeat protected regenerative landscaping.
Protect regenerative landscaping from conflicting HOA penalties. Enforceable landscaping protection, not exemption from every HOA obligation.
Read the full idea →Food production should sustain the living systems on which future harvests depend.
Make regenerative agriculture the agricultural foundation and treat healthy soil as critical infrastructure. Healthy soil and verified regional ecological outcomes; transition design open.
Read the full idea →Farmers should not lose the freedom to save and reproduce seed through ownership or contracts.
Protect farmers’ rights to plant, save, store, breed, and replant seed. Treat seeds as a commons; reform laws, ownership claims, contracts, and market practices that defeat those freedoms. Save, breed and replant; addresses genetic, contractual and market-control routes to dependency.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Residents can restore living systems through intentional gardens and landscapes.
Reward native residential ecosystems, home gardens, and food-growing landscapes in front and back yards. Incentives for intentional stewardship; no final credit/rebate formula.
Read the full idea →Ordinary household use needs rules that distinguish it from major resource extraction.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
A broader household self-sufficiency proposal would protect ordinary solar energy, rooftop rainwater collection, gardens, and responsible use of owned resources. Its scope remains open: surface ownership alone does not settle water, mineral, tribal, conservation, or other rights. Address material pollution, erosion, aquifer, and downstream harms proportionately. Large diversions, extraction, or clearing need distinct impact review. Solar, rooftop rainwater, gardens and responsible resource use; no unlimited extraction right.
Read the full idea →Agricultural markets should protect farmers from coercive dependency and proven abuses.
Prevent monopoly control and impose meaningful consequences for proven abuses. Competition remedies, investigations and farmer harm mechanisms need lawful evidence and due process.
Read the full idea →The pesticide prohibition needs a clear scope and workable transition.
Ban glyphosate and the additional similar pesticides defined by the policy. Additional substances, timing, alternatives and exceptions still require definition.
Read the full idea →Evidence-based accountability, rights protection, and laws people can understand.
Serious threats and complex crimes can exceed a community’s resources.
Maintain federal expertise to identify serious threats to life and property and assist regions that lack capacity to investigate major crimes. Keep local authorities involved through cooperation and assistance. Assistance and defined federal jurisdiction, not automatic takeover whenever a border is crossed.
Read the full idea →Responsibility should remain visible when decisions impose preventable harm.
Assess the consequences of business and public decisions for health, ecosystems, affordability, wages, and meaningful freedom of choice. Require responsible decision-makers to answer for preventable harm. Layered responsibility, warning-sign duties and proportionate consequences; no automatic job-title guilt.
Read the full idea →People should be able to understand proposed laws before enactment.
Require shorter, readable House and Senate bills. Page/word limits, review periods and waiver numbers remain working proposals.
Read the full idea →These directions need more development, or remain proposals and questions to explore. Open each idea to see where it stands.
Public scrutiny needs evidence, responses and corrections.
Develop a public accountability tracker connecting decisions, consequences, evidence, responsible people, and changes sought. Evidence, responses, corrections, privacy and publication standards need design.
Read the full idea →Existing rules deserve accountable review when evidence shows unjustified harm.
This is a working proposal, not an adopted policy.
Develop a continuing, contestable process for keeping, revising, or repealing laws that obstruct rights, enable corruption, or impose unjustified costs. Contestable lawful review; not an automatic sunset of every law.
Read the full idea →Assignments of police and court authority do not complete the design of a fair justice system.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Judicial selection, counsel, prosecution, sentencing, detention, corrections, rehabilitation and victim support.
Read the full idea →National protection needs substantive choices beyond assigning responsibility to the federal government.
This is an open question. No substantive policy has been selected.
Force structure, war powers, procurement, readiness and veterans’ services beyond broad assignment.
Read the full idea →Ecosystem enhancement means leaving living systems healthier, more resilient and better able to sustain future generations. It includes healthy soil, clean waterways, native habitats and biodiversity.
This is a foundation for the whole framework, not only agricultural or environmental policy. Each proposal should consider what it improves, what it could harm and its long-term ecological effects. Claims of improvement need evidence; human convenience alone is not the test.
Explore the foundation across the framework →