FORWARD

by Andrew Yang

USDS members are typically signed up for terms of only a few months or a year, so it operates more like a consulting arm attached to the government than a traditional agency. Still, according to one analysis the USDS is on track to save the federal government $600 million and redirect approximately fifteen hundred labor-years over a five-year period. That’s a phenomenal return on 180 employees.

In May, while the pandemic was raging and our government struggled to give millions of Americans money, I tweeted, “We could use a citizenship portal where we could access benefits, see tax info, renew licenses, connect a bank account, fill out a census, register to vote and get updates. It’s 2020. Right now this would be indispensable and ease this pandemic for millions.”

“Some people are talking about checks and balances. You know what will happen if Mitch McConnell still controls the Senate? Absolutely nothing. He will aim the car of government at a ditch and we will just spin our wheels going nowhere. That is the last thing you want during a crisis.”

I had also proposed a new secretary of technology and innovation role to the transition team that would consolidate the USDS and the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House into an expanded role.

I knew it would be an extraordinarily difficult job. But I also thought I could do an immense amount of good. I wanted to pursue the path of having the most positive impact possible, and it felt like my city needed me.

Did I think I was going to be able to meaningfully address the problems I saw in the amount of time we had?

What is different about the time allotment vs being President? This falls flat

But we had normalized cash relief and helped millions of people.

LBJ

Our country had narrowly avoided total catastrophe. I was stunned at the speed of it all. Things were even worse than I had believed; millions of Americans have been radicalized to the point that thousands were willing to march on our own seat of government. Polarization is metastasizing into violence. Reversing this process would take a mammoth effort on a scale that we have not seen in generations, if such is even possible today.

The dysfunction is going to kill us. Worse, there’s no reason to think that it will change. The two sides will be trapped in a war that both sides win—they will still be hovering in one of the most affluent areas in the country trading power—but the people will lose.

We must stop pretending that if we embed a few good people in a corruptive system, the individuals will somehow become a cleansing agent. At the risk of mixing metaphors, they are more likely to become flies stuck in amber reduced to dialing for dollars and talking themselves into biding time. We have to free them to actually do the work that motivated them to run for office in the first place. We have to tackle the problem of structural incentives.

The Forward Party has six key principles:

Good summary of points from this section on

Universal Basic Income.

Throughout all of book, no mention in how to pay for bill. Closing IRS gaps? Efficiency? Something else? Need better summary

Let’s solve the real problems together. No one else is coming. There is no cavalry; it’s only us. Let’s move this country of ours—the one we love and will leave to our children—Forward.

Ranked-choice voting had enabled people to express their preferences more accurately; according to an exit poll conducted by Edison Research, 77 percent of New York voters said they wanted to keep using ranked-choice voting in future elections and 95 percent found their ballot simple to complete.

Our systems won’t amend themselves. The need for real change is clear. But change won’t come easily. If we are going to have a chance, we are going to need to fight for it. The time for patient belief is ending. The time to build anew is now.

Christopher and Damian, Daddy is working on it.