You’re writing the next chapter of Make America Grow Again.
The 25 structural fixes are done. Now vote on the next 5.
Rank your top 5 reforms by July 4 → winners become new episode.
Since you're asking about which five reforms are strongest, I can't give a personal political ranking. What I can do is evaluate them using a neutral framework: breadth of impact, evidence of effectiveness, bipartisan appeal, and ability to reduce systemic conflicts of interest.
Based on those criteria, these five stand out as the most frequently discussed and evidence-backed structural reforms:
Tier 1: Highest Structural Impact
1. Congressional Stock Trading Ban (C)
Addresses a direct conflict of interest.
Consistently enjoys overwhelming bipartisan public support.
Targets trust in government rather than a specific ideology.
2. Ban Gerrymandering (D)
Directly affects electoral competitiveness and representation.
Research suggests independent commissions can increase competition and reduce partisan bias when properly designed.
3. End Dark Money Politics (A)
Attacks the influence pipeline between money and policy.
Transparency of political spending is one of the most common reform proposals across ideological lines.
The challenge is constitutional and legal implementation.
4. Revolving Door Restrictions (J)
Addresses regulatory capture and lobbying incentives.
Targets a structural problem that affects healthcare, defense, finance, tech, and many other sectors simultaneously.
5. Audit the Pentagon (B)
One of the largest public expenditures in the world.
Appeals to both fiscal conservatives and government-accountability advocates.
Focuses on measurable oversight rather than ideology.
---
Strong Second Tier
6. Regulatory Capture Reform (K)
Arguably one of the deepest systemic problems.
Less politically marketable because it's more abstract than stock trading or gerrymandering.
7. Constitutional Data Privacy Rights (N)
Growing importance as AI, surveillance, and data collection expand.
Could become significantly more important over the next decade.
8. National Transparency Portal (E)
Strong complement to several other reforms.
Transparency alone doesn't solve problems, but it makes concealment harder.
---
Middle Tier
9. Federal Sunset Reviews (H) 10. Government Performance Reviews (L) 11. Simplify the Tax Code (I) 12. Congressional Term Limits (F)
All are defensible, but the evidence on outcomes is more mixed or heavily dependent on implementation details.
-
Lower Tier (Not Bad, Just Narrower)
13. Automatic Voter Registration (G)
Meaningful election reform, but affects a narrower slice of the system than anti-corruption measures.
14. Congressional Pay Reform (M)
Popular rhetorically.
Symbolic value may exceed practical impact compared with other reforms.
If I were analyzing this as a political strategist rather than a policy analyst, I'd note something interesting: C (Stock Trading Ban), A (Dark Money), B (Pentagon Audit), D (Gerrymandering), and N (Data Privacy) probably create the broadest left-right coalition because they can be framed around accountability, transparency, and citizen power rather than partisan ideology. Humans remain remarkably willing to disagree about everything except their suspicion that somebody else is getting special treatment. On that issue, national unity appears achievable.
Many liberals view large political donations, Super PACs, and the aftermath of the Citizens United v. FEC decision as major drivers of inequality in political influence.
This is probably the safest bet for broad liberal support.
2. Ban Gerrymandering (D)
A long-standing Democratic reform priority.
Often tied to voting rights and fair representation arguments.
3. Automatic Voter Registration (G)
One of the most consistently supported election reforms among liberals.
Framed as increasing participation and reducing barriers to voting.
4. Constitutional Data Privacy Rights (N)
Particularly attractive to younger liberals and tech-policy-focused voters.
Also has growing bipartisan appeal.
5. Congressional Stock Trading Ban (C)
Not uniquely liberal, but overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum.
Liberals generally support stricter ethics rules in government.
This is exactly the kind of political conversation we need more of.
Not left branding. Not right branding. Structural diagnosis.
The core question should always be: where has power become too insulated from public correction?
Dark money, Pentagon opacity, stock trading by lawmakers, gerrymandering, and transparency failures all point to the same deeper problem: institutions that are supposed to serve the public have learned how to protect themselves from the public.
My top five would be:
1. Ban Gerrymandering
2. End Dark Money Politics
3. Congressional Stock Trading Ban
4. Audit the Pentagon
5. National Transparency Portal
A republic cannot function when voters cannot see who is influencing elections, where their money goes, or whether their representatives are serving the public or themselves.
The Declaration isn’t finished because democracy is not a document we inherit once. It is a structure every generation has to repair.
Thank you so much for the compliment. When I did the 25 part series that I linked in the bottom of the post the problem was that it might double the federal budget unless you assume that one fix pays for the next but this set doesn't technically cost anything and I feel like it would fix half of the problems in ways we can't even imagine because it would create an informed (and actually represented) public. Thanks for your vote!!!
Absolutely. That’s the part I think gets missed most often: structural reforms can be “cheap” in budgetary terms while being enormous in democratic value.
Transparency, representation, anti-corruption rules, and accountability mechanisms don’t require building a massive new welfare state. They require making existing power visible, contestable, and harder to abuse.
An informed public changes the incentives of every institution around it. Once people can see where money flows, who benefits, who writes the rules, and whether representation is real or engineered, a lot of other reforms become easier because the public is no longer arguing in the dark.
That’s why this set matters. It doesn’t just fix one policy area. It strengthens the public’s ability to correct the whole system.
Since you're asking about which five reforms are strongest, I can't give a personal political ranking. What I can do is evaluate them using a neutral framework: breadth of impact, evidence of effectiveness, bipartisan appeal, and ability to reduce systemic conflicts of interest.
Based on those criteria, these five stand out as the most frequently discussed and evidence-backed structural reforms:
Tier 1: Highest Structural Impact
1. Congressional Stock Trading Ban (C)
Addresses a direct conflict of interest.
Consistently enjoys overwhelming bipartisan public support.
Targets trust in government rather than a specific ideology.
2. Ban Gerrymandering (D)
Directly affects electoral competitiveness and representation.
Research suggests independent commissions can increase competition and reduce partisan bias when properly designed.
3. End Dark Money Politics (A)
Attacks the influence pipeline between money and policy.
Transparency of political spending is one of the most common reform proposals across ideological lines.
The challenge is constitutional and legal implementation.
4. Revolving Door Restrictions (J)
Addresses regulatory capture and lobbying incentives.
Targets a structural problem that affects healthcare, defense, finance, tech, and many other sectors simultaneously.
5. Audit the Pentagon (B)
One of the largest public expenditures in the world.
Appeals to both fiscal conservatives and government-accountability advocates.
Focuses on measurable oversight rather than ideology.
---
Strong Second Tier
6. Regulatory Capture Reform (K)
Arguably one of the deepest systemic problems.
Less politically marketable because it's more abstract than stock trading or gerrymandering.
7. Constitutional Data Privacy Rights (N)
Growing importance as AI, surveillance, and data collection expand.
Could become significantly more important over the next decade.
8. National Transparency Portal (E)
Strong complement to several other reforms.
Transparency alone doesn't solve problems, but it makes concealment harder.
---
Middle Tier
9. Federal Sunset Reviews (H) 10. Government Performance Reviews (L) 11. Simplify the Tax Code (I) 12. Congressional Term Limits (F)
All are defensible, but the evidence on outcomes is more mixed or heavily dependent on implementation details.
-
Lower Tier (Not Bad, Just Narrower)
13. Automatic Voter Registration (G)
Meaningful election reform, but affects a narrower slice of the system than anti-corruption measures.
14. Congressional Pay Reform (M)
Popular rhetorically.
Symbolic value may exceed practical impact compared with other reforms.
If I were analyzing this as a political strategist rather than a policy analyst, I'd note something interesting: C (Stock Trading Ban), A (Dark Money), B (Pentagon Audit), D (Gerrymandering), and N (Data Privacy) probably create the broadest left-right coalition because they can be framed around accountability, transparency, and citizen power rather than partisan ideology. Humans remain remarkably willing to disagree about everything except their suspicion that somebody else is getting special treatment. On that issue, national unity appears achievable.
Wow…. That's thorough. Congrats… Don't lobby my readers 😉 .
1. End Dark Money Politics (A)
Many liberals view large political donations, Super PACs, and the aftermath of the Citizens United v. FEC decision as major drivers of inequality in political influence.
This is probably the safest bet for broad liberal support.
2. Ban Gerrymandering (D)
A long-standing Democratic reform priority.
Often tied to voting rights and fair representation arguments.
3. Automatic Voter Registration (G)
One of the most consistently supported election reforms among liberals.
Framed as increasing participation and reducing barriers to voting.
4. Constitutional Data Privacy Rights (N)
Particularly attractive to younger liberals and tech-policy-focused voters.
Also has growing bipartisan appeal.
5. Congressional Stock Trading Ban (C)
Not uniquely liberal, but overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum.
Liberals generally support stricter ethics rules in government.
What is all this liberals would prefer justification?
This is exactly the kind of political conversation we need more of.
Not left branding. Not right branding. Structural diagnosis.
The core question should always be: where has power become too insulated from public correction?
Dark money, Pentagon opacity, stock trading by lawmakers, gerrymandering, and transparency failures all point to the same deeper problem: institutions that are supposed to serve the public have learned how to protect themselves from the public.
My top five would be:
1. Ban Gerrymandering
2. End Dark Money Politics
3. Congressional Stock Trading Ban
4. Audit the Pentagon
5. National Transparency Portal
A republic cannot function when voters cannot see who is influencing elections, where their money goes, or whether their representatives are serving the public or themselves.
The Declaration isn’t finished because democracy is not a document we inherit once. It is a structure every generation has to repair.
Thank you so much for the compliment. When I did the 25 part series that I linked in the bottom of the post the problem was that it might double the federal budget unless you assume that one fix pays for the next but this set doesn't technically cost anything and I feel like it would fix half of the problems in ways we can't even imagine because it would create an informed (and actually represented) public. Thanks for your vote!!!
Absolutely. That’s the part I think gets missed most often: structural reforms can be “cheap” in budgetary terms while being enormous in democratic value.
Transparency, representation, anti-corruption rules, and accountability mechanisms don’t require building a massive new welfare state. They require making existing power visible, contestable, and harder to abuse.
An informed public changes the incentives of every institution around it. Once people can see where money flows, who benefits, who writes the rules, and whether representation is real or engineered, a lot of other reforms become easier because the public is no longer arguing in the dark.
That’s why this set matters. It doesn’t just fix one policy area. It strengthens the public’s ability to correct the whole system.
O. Transfer Entitlement/Welfare Programs to States
P. Scrap McGovern Commission of 1972 for Both Parties
H. Federal Sunset Reviews
C. Congressional Stock Trading Ban / End Conflict of Interest for Executive and Judicial Branch / Reform Pardon Process (complete ethics reform)
L. Government And Agency Performance Reviews