In 2011, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) launched the Governors’ Council to bring pragmatic state-based perspectives to national issues. The federalist tenets at the heart of the U.S. Constitution have fuelled a dynamic debate about the balance of federal and state powers throughout our nation’s history. Many of today’s most complex and pressing challenges, from reviving the economy to controlling health care costs, are deeply entangled in the interplay between federal and state roles and responsibilities. Recognizing that governors around the country are on the frontlines of many of these challenges as leaders of our “laboratories of democracy,” BPC formed the Governors’ Council to inject into the federal discourse a strong sense of the changing landscape outside of Washington and new thinking on best practices from the states.
The Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) Housing Commission aims to reform the nation’s housing policy by crafting a package of realistic and actionable policy recommendations that respond to both the near-term and long-term challenges facing the housing sector. Making a continual effort to include both Republican and Democratic perspectives in its outreach and research, the Housing Commission will draw upon a wide range of viewpoints, bringing together housing experts, business leaders, former elected officials, academics, and other key stakeholders to help define this complex issue. The commission is hosting a series of regional forums across the U.S. to gather input from a broad range of individuals and organizations.
The Energy Project’s Energy Security Initiative will focus on strategies to improve the U.S.’s access to and efficient use of secure, reliable and affordable energy sources in a manner consistent with our country’s environmental standards. The Energy Security Initiative will support research initiatives and task forces on a range of issues including oil supply and domestic production; efficient use of natural gas and production from shale gas; mobile source fuels policy; and nuclear power.
The Energy Project’s Energy Innovation Initiative will focus on the potential for advanced energy technologies to enhance U.S. economic competitiveness and improve our nation’s energy and environmental security. The Energy Innovation Initiative will support a variety of projects exploring the institutions, policies, and industrial activities associated with the development and deployment of new energy and technology systems. Current areas of focus include the American Energy Innovation Council, energy finance, energy subsidy reform, and geoengineering research.
Energy & Environment Initiative
The Energy Project’s Energy & Environment Initiative will focus on the challenges and opportunities facing the electric power sector as it transitions to a cleaner, more modern fleet. The Energy & Environment Initiative will conduct independent analysis and convene working groups of expert stakeholders to consider a range of legislative and regulatory issues. Key issues include the role of FERC in supporting a clean, reliable electric system, forthcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, federal clean energy standards, and energy efficiency policies and programs.
American Energy Innovation Council
New AEIC Report: Catalyzing American Ingenuity (September 2011)
Click here to view the AEIC website. Click here to read "A Business Plan for America's Energy Future" (June 2010).Health Information Technology Initiative
Policymakers and leaders from every sector of health care agree that when effectively and meaningfully used, health information technology (IT) will help address the most pressing challenges confronting the U.S. health care system—rising costs, eroding coverage, and inconsistent quality.
Without question, our economy—in fact our way of life—is highly dependent on access to stable, affordable supplies of energy. We must unify as a nation in a bipartisan manner around a new era in energy security. The BPC Energy Project supports a fundamental reassessment of America’s energy policy goals, decision-making structures, and policies to place energy security at the very center of energy policy.
Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative is a year-long effort to enhance physical activity and nutritional opportunities for all Americans. Led by a bipartisan group of four former U.S. cabinet secretaries, the initiative brings together key experts, policymakers, and stakeholders to identify opportunities for collaborative action in four priority areas: investing in children’s health; creating healthy schools; improving the health of communities; and developing healthy institutions.
Strategic Public Diplomacy Initiative
Read the Report: Egypt in Transition: Public Diplomacy, Economics and the Prospects for Democracy
Read the White Paper by Gen. (ret.) James L. Jones: Investing in the Revolution: Economics and the Prospects for Democracy in Egypt
The Foreign Policy Project's (FPP) Russia Initiative will work to create a more cohesive U.S. strategy towards Russia—one that is designed to better advance U.S. security and economic interests and builds on the two countries’ common interests. Co-chaired by Senator Chuck Robb and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, the initiative will offer ways to construct an improved bilateral relationship in the energy, business, trade, and investment sectors--areas critical to our collective future.
In 2008, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) launched the Leaders’ Project on the State of American Health Care, an effort to produce a comprehensive health reform plan that could win support from both Republicans and Democrats. Former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and Bob Dole worked together to negotiate a plan to ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care. It was released in June 2009. Now that health reform has been signed into law, the BPC will turn to the next logical step—developing a bipartisan approach to help states meet their ongoing budgetary, demographic and health reform challenges.
In November 2010, the Bipartisan Policy Center launched the Democracy Project – a bipartisan initiative that analyzes and advocates for improvements to our democratic institutions. Co-chaired by former Secretaries Dan Glickman and Dirk Kempthorne and AOL co-founder Steve Case, the Democracy Project has assembled an Advisory Committee consisting of some of the nation’s top government, business, civic, military and academic leaders. Despite their ideological differences, all share a concern about the tenor of our political discourse and a growing need to confront our many challenges together – from the national debt to national security.
Updated Documents
Fundamental, Pro-Growth Tax Reform
Restoring America’s Future is a plan for that new course. It was developed by a bipartisan task force that is chaired by former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former White House Budget Director and Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alice Rivlin, and includes 19 former White House and Cabinet officials, former Senate and House members, former governors and mayors, and business, labor, and other leaders. The plan reduces and stabilizes the debt at 60 percent of the economy, and it reforms personal and corporate taxes to make America more competitive, ensures that Social Security can pay benefits to future generations, and controls health care costs.
Featured Posts
- The Debt Ceiling Slouches Toward 2012
- The Twelve Takeaways from CBO’s 2012 Budget and Economic Outlook
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Sequester
To be sure, Restoring America’s Future makes tough choices. It freezes discretionary spending, reforms programs, ends tax deductions, and raises new taxes. But, by stabilizing the debt, reforming the tax code, and controlling health care costs, it lays the groundwork for a brighter future.
Robust capital formation has long been the hallmark of U.S. economic strength, business growth, job creation and our nation’s international competitiveness. The recent crisis in financial markets and accompanying recession was in no small part caused by outmoded financial regulations, poor regulatory oversight, and business practices that sought to exploit associated economic inefficiencies. Strong reforms are needed to restore confidence in the system. However, if done poorly, reform can stifle innovation and put the United States at a relative disadvantage on the global stage.
The Economic Policy Project (EPP) focuses on federal economic and fiscal policy and its ramifications within the larger national economy. Concentrating on federal debt, deficits and budgeting, EPP also works closely with other policy projects at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) when their issues overlap with federal fiscal matters. Primary activities of EPP are the creation of comprehensive federal budgets, including highly-detailed recommendations for both Congress and other policymaking institutions. In addition, EPP staff analyzes congressional budget proposals, budgets offered by the administration, and technical analyses of legislative procedure and the congressional budget process.
The Homeland Security Project's core mission is to be an active, bipartisan voice on homeland and national security issues. With terrorist threats and tactics becoming more complex and diverse, the project works to foster public discourse, provide expert analysis, and develop proactive policy solutions on how best to respond to emerging security challenges.
“[W]e are… developing a strategy to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon." -Barack Obama, Camp LeJeune, N.C., February 27, 2009In this, our third report on this most serious challenge, we elucidate the outcomes we are likely to face if we do not now act decisively to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. We recognize the difficulties we face in addressing this threat. Any solution requires imagination, resolve and risks. But compared with what will happen when time runs out, the choice cannot be clearer.
Stabilizing Fragile States Initiative
"...over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory. Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented, from whom the terrorists recruit." Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2009
The Foreign Policy Project (FPP) is committed to developing realistic and robust bipartisan policy recommendations for the principal national security and foreign policy issues confronting the United States.
National Transportation Policy Project
The National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) is bringing new voices to the transportation debate to create a dynamic and enduring vision for the future of federal surface transportation policy. The project is composed of a broad coalition of transportation policy experts, business and civic leaders, and is chaired by four distinguished former elected officials who served at the federal, state, and local levels.
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