The Accord and the 2029 Plans
A comparison of the New American Accord against the major 2029-transition policy frameworks currently in development. Written for researchers, journalists, candidates, and donors evaluating the field.
The 2029 field at a glance
Several distinct efforts share the “2029” label. Each was built for a different purpose; none of them are interchangeable.
- Project 2025 (Heritage Foundation) — agency-control and personnel-transition blueprint, conservative.
- Project 2029 (Cherny / Democracy Journal) — centrist Democratic agenda-building, policy articles → book.
- project2029.me (Orlowitz / grassroots) — citizen-led democracy reform coalition.
- project2029foramerica.org (Reform America) — legislative proposals for the next Democratic president.
- Progressive-Mandate.org “Project 2029” (Chester Gingrich) — independent open-source progressive framework.
- Project 2029+ (ResearchGate paper) — three-phase progressive policy initiative.
- The New American Accord (Hersman / LiDAR Space) — integrated fifty-year fiscal-social operating system.
Three dimensions of comparison
| Dimension | Project 2025 | Project 2029 (Cherny) | Project 2029.me | NAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Agency redirection | Policy agenda | Democracy reforms | Full operating system |
| Maturity | Day-One ready | Agenda-building | Modular planks | Architecture v10.2 complete |
| Scoring | Implicit | Not yet | Not provided | Bottom-up, calculators public |
| Personnel | 2,000 vetted | TBD | N/A | Open competency-based |
| Integration | High (executive only) | Modular | Modular | High (cross-instrument coupling) |
Where the Accord agrees with the Project 2029 efforts
- Universal healthcare with public financing
- Universal child benefit
- Carbon pricing
- Tax progressivity restored
- Democracy hardening (RCV, independent redistricting, SCOTUS terms)
- Inspector General protection
- Section 230 reform
Where the Accord goes further
- Integrated revenue base — the flat payroll tax replaces FICA + employer premium; one instrument funds healthcare and Social Security.
- Automatic debt retirement — the Debt Sunset Governor couples rate adjustments to debt trajectory.
- Externality pricing as a category — ten harms priced at source, not just carbon.
- FedCard as universal payment + benefits rail — no comparable proposal in any other framework.
- Expert Boards with Fed-style independence.
- Macrogovernors as automatic stabilizers.
- Land-Value Surcharge replacing MID and Section 121 capital-gains exclusion.
- Parity Wedge pricing immigration's labor-market externality.
- Fifty-year time horizon with statutory corridors.
Where the Accord differs in structure (not direction)
- Project 2025 builds personnel first; the Accord assumes competency-based recruitment from the existing federal-employee and policy-professional talent pool, which is a much larger pool than what conservative governance has access to.
- Cherny's Project 2029 publishes articles toward a book; the Accord publishes a fully parameterized architecture with calculators that allow users to score their own household, business, or estate.
- The other Project 2029 efforts present modular planks; the Accord presents an integrated architecture where instruments fund and discipline each other.
Isn’t this just Denmark?
Denmark built generous floors for a small, homogeneous country. The Accord shares some of those floors but attempts what Denmark never did: at continental scale, across 340 million people, financed by pricing harms and closing escape routes rather than high broad taxes — and aimed at clearing the specific things breaking American democracy. Same floors, a different project: not a welfare state, but the clearing of obstacles so a free and varied people can out-build an autocracy.
Recommendation for readers
If you are evaluating the field for a candidate, donor, or coalition: start with the eight-page briefing (PDF) for the short-form synthesis — the aspiration, the three commitments, how it pays, and what is unique to the Accord. For the long form, read the Blueprint and run your own household through the family calculator. The architecture is mature, scored, and ready for adoption — in whole, or as named planks the other 2029 efforts can absorb.