If you're still waiting for George R.R. Martin to finish the next sequel to "A Game of Thrones," I have another suggestion for a work of fantasy that's just as long, complicated and brutal.
It's called Project 2025 and, at 920 pages, it has more words than several of Martin's novels. It also has a similar approach to governance: The proposal rhapsodizes about leaders using unchecked power to pursue their enemies, including thousands of government workers who try to make sure your water is clean, your food is safe and your prosecutions are fair.
But you have to hand it to the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank that dreamt up the plans for a second Donald Trump administration: Project 2025 certainly has a lot of ideas, even though most of them aren't very good.
While reading through the proposal recently, I found a lot to criticize: granting the president vast new powers, politicizing federal agencies, reversing efforts to fight climate change, reducing legal immigration, making it dramatically harder to get an abortion, and on and on. Some of these ideas would leave Americans less free and more financially insecure; others are entirely unworkable.
But within those hundreds of pages, a few reasonable suggestions snuck through. I came across a handful of smaller ideas that are worth considering, even if you disagree with their broader aims.
Make it easier to build a nuclear power plant
Project 2025 calls for streamlining the regulatory requirements and licensing process for new nuclear power plants. To be clear, this is part of a section that also calls for making it easier to drill for oil and natural gas and even promoting the use of fossil fuels in developing countries while rolling back efforts to fight climate change. But more nuclear power could help the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels by replacing coal and helping fill the gap when wind and solar aren't available. Project 2025's authors may not want to fight climate change, but this idea would help do it anyway.
Streamline student loan repayment plans
On education, Project 2025 proposes consolidating various income-driven repayment plans for student loans. Surprisingly, the authors acknowledge that these plans, in which monthly payments are tied to your income level, are "a superior approach" compared to fixed monthly payments, which hit people with lower incomes harder. (In other sections, the authors are much less concerned about making the tax code progressive.) To be clear, their end goal is a repayment plan with tight limits and paltry benefits. But the idea of clearing up the current tangle of student loan repayment plans in favor of a single, straightforward program is commendable.
Create a new kind of savings account
In the chapter on the Treasury Department, the authors suggest creating a new universal savings account that would allow Americans to sock away up to $15,000 each year, making withdrawals on any gains tax-free. These accounts would be similar to Roth IRAs, allowing people to invest in various ways, but without the retirement-related withdrawal restrictions those have.
Unfortunately, this is part of Project 2025's broader plan to cut taxes on the wealthy. But the idea of simple savings plans that anyone can use has helped increase savings rates in Canada and the United Kingdom, and it would be a smarter approach than the current mishmash of health savings accounts, IRAs and state-based college savings plans that end up being used mainly by wealthier Americans.
Each of these ideas reflect the old conservative impulses to cut red tape, streamline government and give individuals more responsibility for their own futures.
Each of these ideas reflect the old conservative impulses to cut red tape, streamline government and give individuals more responsibility for their own futures. These arguments are trotted out so frequently on the right that they're easy to tune out, not least because they're often cited in bad faith by politicians who just want to shield big businesses from regulation or to cut benefits that help everyday Americans. But there's a reason why these kinds of arguments are successful: they make intuitive sense to many people.
Among the many losses of our polarized era is that the two parties don't work together on big pieces of legislation as much anymore. That's unfortunate because both parties can have insights into how to craft effective policies that can get overlooked when only one party is involved. That also leads partisans to dismissively reject proposals that come from the other side. (Look no further than "Obamacare," which was modeled after ideas championed by the Heritage Foundation and first implemented by a Republican governor, before becoming a conservative bogeyman.)
But a good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from — even if the source is Project 2025. And we should all be looking for ways to make government work better.
