Why this document exists

Candidates who could win on substance keep losing on shorthand. The Sanity Project is a 26-item platform of specific, evidence-based policy commitments that Democrats have championed for decades, that a majority of Americans already support, and that no recent Congress with a Republican majority has been willing to enact.

The pitch to voters is plain: give people reasons to vote for Democratic candidates, not just against unpopular MAGA policies.

What the platform covers

The 26 commitments are organized in three parts.

Part One — How Democracy Must Function (Items 1–9)

The institutional guardrails recent years have proven cannot survive as mere norms: DOJ and judicial independence; a comprehensive anti-corruption framework; congressional and federal-judiciary term limits; campaign-finance transparency and spending limits; Supreme Court nomination and confirmation reform; mandatory judicial ethics and recusal standards; a ban on mid-census partisan gerrymandering; federal election security and voting-access standards.

Part Two — What Democrats Believe (Items 10–26)

The substantive policy commitments, grouped in five clusters.

Economic Security and Fairness. Social Security solvency (remove the tax cap above $400K); prescription drug pricing reform; a minimum effective federal tax rate for individuals earning more than $100 million; housing affordability through expanded LIHTC, conversion incentives, and zoning reform; small-business and Main Street investment; fiscal responsibility and honest budgeting; investment in America’s energy generation and transmission.

Health, Science, and Public Safety. A phased path to universal single-payer healthcare beginning with a robust public option; a national framework for addiction, mental health, and public safety; restored NIH and CDC funding and pandemic preparedness; protected disaster-preparedness infrastructure (NOAA, FEMA, the Forest Service).

Rights, Opportunity, and Equal Justice. Restored and codified federal civil-rights enforcement; equal opportunity and non-discrimination in federal policy; fully funded veterans care with independent oversight.

Immigration and Workforce. Comprehensive immigration reform: legal status for long-resident workers, modernized employment-based visas, and professional civil enforcement focused on genuine public-safety threats rather than mass-deportation theater.

American Leadership at Home and Abroad. Restored American global leadership, treaty reliability, and the post-1945 alliance structure; an information ecosystem that protects local news, media independence, and press freedom.

Part Three — How We Pay For It (Section 3A–3F)

The headline. The platform’s 26 commitments cost approximately $190–345 billion per year in new federal spending. Documented offsets — every figure anchored in non-partisan scoring — provide $235–415 billion per year. At midpoint estimates, the platform pays for itself with $45–70 billion in annual budget slack.

Sources of those offsets:

• Defense realignment (procurement reform, sunsetting legacy platforms, asymmetric reinvestment in drones / cyber / electronic warfare, contractor cost discipline): +$60–130 B/year.
• Immigration enforcement right-sizing (professional civil enforcement vs. mass-deportation theater): +$30–50 B/year.
• Watchdog-identified inefficiency recovery (IRS enforcement restoration, improper-payment reduction, GAO duplication consolidation): +$40–80 B/year.
• Drug-pricing reform federal savings (extended Medicare negotiation + out-of-pocket caps): +$70–100 B/year.
• Minimum effective rate on $100M+ earners: +$35–55 B/year.

The Pitch

A vote for a Democratic candidate is a vote for the policies on these pages — not for the personalities, not for the slogans, not for the tribe. The case is made. The polling is done. The arithmetic balances. The only thing missing is the willingness to say it out loud.