The Next Square Deal
Menu

The people-first platform

Ten guarantees. Three promises. One progressive direction.

The Next Square Deal proposes a political platform for economic security, democratic power, freedom from concentrated power, and stewardship of our shared future. It is independent of any candidate or party and leaves room for serious disagreement about policy design.

Proposed public guarantee Aspirational principle

A necessary rights clarification

Unless otherwise labeled, the guarantees described here are proposed public commitments—not claims about rights currently enforceable under the United States Constitution.

Some pages also discuss existing statutes, regulations, services, state constitutional provisions, or international norms. Their labels link to the central rights explainer.

The three promises

A framework for foundations, power, and time

Each guarantee has a primary home, but the promises overlap. Housing affects health; markets affect work; democratic capacity affects every public commitment.

The working platform

Ten guarantees people should be able to count on

These are the platform's initial positions. They remain open to evidence and revision, but they are not neutral about the goal: every person should have a secure foundation, protection from concentrated power, and an equal stake in the future.

What support means

Shared ends without enforced uniformity

Supporting the Next Square Deal means backing the direction of its proposed guarantees—not claiming they are already law and not agreeing to one bill, funding model, or level of government. People can share the goal while debating design, cost, sequence, and responsibility.

See honest ways to support the platform

Primary promise map

Where each guarantee begins

Each guarantee has one canonical home in the framework. Its full page can still explain connections to other guarantees without turning those connections into an unsupported second classification.

A Secure Foundation

People need a reliable base from which to work, participate, care for others, and plan. Security should expand practical freedom rather than prescribe one way of life.

  1. 01 Good Work
  2. 02 Health Security
  3. 03 Affordable Home
  4. 04 Education
  5. 05 Time and Care
  6. 06 Life’s Risks

Freedom from Concentrated Power

Freedom requires protection from monopoly, exploitation, fraud, arbitrary surveillance, discrimination, and institutions too powerful to answer to the public.

  1. 07 Fair Markets
  2. 08 Consumer & Digital

Stewardship of Our Future

Every generation inherits institutions, infrastructure, resources, and an environment—and owes the next generation a system capable of enduring.

  1. 09 Environment & Infrastructure
  2. 10 Equal Citizenship

What a guarantee is

A public commitment to an outcome

A guarantee defines a condition worth organizing institutions around—such as timely access to care or protection from deceptive data practices. It should be specific enough to evaluate, but not so rigid that it makes one program the only acceptable route.

It can include enforceable pieces without pretending the whole commitment is already law. A guarantee also creates an obligation to report gaps, measure results, and revise tools that fail.

What implementation means

Different tools can serve the same goal

Legislation, regulation, public services, social insurance, tax policy, competition, labor institutions, procurement, private and nonprofit action, and community institutions distribute authority differently.

The project therefore asks: who acts, who pays, who qualifies, who enforces, how errors are appealed, what supply is required, and how outcomes are measured?

Open the policy toolbox

Cost and capacity

A promise without an operating model is not enough

A credible framework must place fiscal cost beside existing private costs, transition risk, institutional capacity, supply, administration, and the distribution of gains and burdens.

Money

State the revenue, premiums, fees, prices, tax expenditures, borrowing, or reallocation a mechanism requires. Do not call a benefit free because its cost moves.

Capacity

Coverage and eligibility do not produce homes, clinicians, teachers, inspectors, grid equipment, or competent caseworkers by themselves.

Administration

Simple rules on paper can create hard forms, delays, mistaken denials, fraud exposure, or discretionary barriers in practice.

Markets

Public action changes prices, investment, entry, consolidation, work arrangements, and supply. Those responses can help or undermine a goal.

Trust

Durable institutions need understandable rules, due process, privacy, oversight, and evidence that errors are corrected.

Time

Transition costs and long-run obligations differ. A fast change can protect people sooner while creating operational risk; a slow change can preserve harmful gaps.

Shared responsibility

Not every guarantee belongs to one level of government

Authority, scale, knowledge, portability, rights, and accountability point to different institutional roles.

01

Federal

National floors, interstate markets, social insurance, civil rights, fiscal capacity, and portability.

02

State

Constitutional duties, licensing, insurance, elections, labor and consumer rules, utilities, education, and experimentation.

03

Local

Land use, infrastructure, public services, procurement, transit, public health, and close knowledge of place.

04

Labor

Collective bargaining, worker voice, benefits, safety, training, and democratic power at work.

05

Community

Mutual aid, cooperatives, local accountability, trusted delivery, and institutions rooted in lived experience.

06

Private and nonprofit

Production, innovation, care, finance, service delivery, expertise, and plural approaches within fair public rules.

Make the platform public

Choose the guarantees you would put first.

Build a personal five-priority Deal and share it only if you choose. The project does not record your selections or treat them as a petition signature.

Build and share your Deal Ways to support the work

Frequently asked questions

The questions a framework should answer

Are these guarantees constitutional rights?

No. Unless a page identifies an existing legal protection, the guarantees are proposed public commitments, not claims about rights currently enforceable under the United States Constitution.

Does every guarantee require a federal program?

No. Depending on the problem, responsibility may be shared among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, labor institutions, community organizations, markets, and nonprofit providers.

How would these proposals be funded?

There is no single funding answer. Each option must identify its full public and private costs, revenue source, distributional effects, administrative needs, transition plan, and long-term obligations.

What role remains for markets and private organizations?

A substantial one. The framework asks whether markets are open, competitive, accountable, and capable of serving the public goal; it does not assume that public provision is always best or that private provision is always fair.

How does the project handle disagreement?

It separates shared goals from contested mechanisms, presents serious objections in their strongest reasonable form, labels evidence by type and role, and records open questions instead of forcing premature certainty.

How will the framework be revised?

Pages display review dates and revision notes. Material factual corrections, changes in legal status, stronger contrary evidence, and clearer implementation analysis should produce visible updates rather than silent rewrites.

Is this project affiliated with a candidate or political party?

No. The Next Square Deal is independent of any candidate or political party. It presents a progressive political platform through a civic-policy publication, not a campaign, party committee, donation funnel, or election-targeting operation.

What does proposed public guarantee mean?

It means a civic commitment that can guide legislation, budgets, regulation, services, and institutional design. It does not mean the commitment is already constitutional, statutory, funded, or enforceable.

Why present more than one policy pathway?

Public goals rarely determine one institutional design. Comparing provision, insurance, regulation, competition, tax policy, labor institutions, and community action makes costs and tradeoffs easier to see.

Is this a political platform?

Yes. The Next Square Deal is a proposed progressive civic platform intended to educate, invite scrutiny, and earn informed public support. It is independent of any candidate or political party and does not require agreement on every policy mechanism.