From June 2020 to June 2022, the Campaign for Common Good brought together over 100 prominent leaders from both parties – including former senators, governors, mayors, and business and thought leaders – to call for an overhaul of government at every level. Read the original press release here.
Washington Needs a Spring Cleaning
Government should focus on results, not rigid rules. Good government should allow officials to do their jobs, and to be accountable. Smart government should allow citizens to use their common sense.
Common sense is dead in Washington. Just as mindless bureaucracy delayed public health officials from containing the spread of coronavirus, it disempowers teachers, raises the cost of healthcare, stifles innovation, and frustrates Americans in daily activities. Overgrown bureaucracy serves no valid purpose.
What’s needed is a new governing vision focused on results. This requires a simpler framework that liberates people to roll up their sleeves and take responsibility. Americans must be free to do what’s right. It’s time to return to founding principles. The new governing vision we propose is this:
- Give people responsibility for results, not red tape.
- Simplify regulatory frameworks into coherent goals and guiding principles, more like the Constitution.
- Replace rigid rulebooks with personal accountability.
- Revive core values for the public good, such as environmental stewardship and fiscal responsibility.
Join our Campaign for Common Good. It’s not a partisan battle. It’s a battle against mindless dictates and Washington inertia. To fix what ails America, we must demand the right to do what’s right.
We demand a government that works. New leaders get elected, but old problems don’t get fixed. Encrusted bureaucracy stifles leadership and suffocates daily freedoms. No one designed this system—regulations just piled up, almost without our noticing it, decade after decade.
Washington needs a major overhaul. It must focus on results—whether to contain a pandemic or to fix decrepit infrastructure. It must replace accumulated legal layers with simple, coherent codes that give everyone—regulator and regulated alike—the freedom to use their common sense. Doing this will be as historic as it is essential. Unleashing the American spirit of initiative and allegiance to the common good is what will allow us to recover from COVID-19 and move our nation forward.
I, therefore, petition my public officials to carry out a basic overhaul of government at every level:
- Clean out unnecessary laws, rules, and programs that will impede recovery of business, schools, and other institutions. Appoint independent “spring cleaning commissions” to accelerate revival and to recommend simpler regulatory frameworks moving forward.
- Prioritize reforms in areas that are broadly viewed to be broken, not only paralytic red tape in public health, but also the time-consuming bureaucracy in schools, hospitals, and permitting. The new frameworks should allow government to better focus on public goals, cut waste, and create clear lines of public accountability.
- Mandate sunsets on all public programs so that Congress periodically cleans out or adapts old laws, rules, and programs that no longer serve the public good.
Selected Signatories
John E. Abele
Co-founder, Boston Scientific
Lee Sanford Ainslie III
Founder & CEO, Maverick Capital
Robert Alt
President & CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Richard Arum
Dean, School of Education, University of California-Irvine
Linda Avey
Co-founder, 23andme; CEO, Precise.ly, Inc.
Brian Balfour
Executive Vice President, Civitas Institute
Jeremiah A. Barondess, M.D.
Former President, New York Academy of Medicine
Austin Berg
Vice President, Illinois Policy Institute; Co-author, The New Chicago Way
Charlotte B. Beyer
Founder, Institute for Private Investors (IPI)
Anne Board
Management consultant
Kit Bond
Former Governor of Missouri; Former U.S. Senator from Missouri
Bill Bradley
Former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
Horace Brock, Ph.D.
Economist; President, Strategic Economic Decisions, Inc.
William R. Brody, M.D., Ph.D.
Former President, Johns Hopkins University
Kelly Jean Brough
President & CEO, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
James P. Cain and Helen Cain
Former Ambassador to Denmark
Arne Carlson
Former Governor of Minnesota
Gerhard Casper
Former President, Stanford University
David Childs
Architect, Civic Leader
Robert Clay
Chairman, Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship
Rick Cole
Former Mayor, City of Pasadena
Anthony Coles
Former Deputy Mayor, NYC
Michael J. Critelli
Former CEO, Pitney Bowes
Mitch Daniels
Former Governor of Indiana
John J. Davenport, Ph.D.
Professor, Fordam University
Daniel DiSalvo
Chair, Political Science, The City College of New York
Christopher DeMuth
Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute
Peter Duchin
Civic Leader
David Durenberger
Former U.S. Senator from Minnesota
Douglas Durst
The Durst Organization
James Ellis
Former Dean, USC Marshall School of Business
Alain C. Enthoven, Ph.D.
Economist, Stanford University
Daniel C. Esty
Professor, Yale University
Ron Faucheux
Former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and Secretary of Commerce
Dianne D. Felton
Former Chair, Mechanics Bank
Jeffrey S. Flier, M.D.
Former Dean, Harvard Medical School
Richard N. Foster
Management Consultant, author
Wyche Fowler
Former U.S. Senator from Georgia
Miriam K. Freedman
Author; Special Education Adviser
Allan W. Fung
Mayor, Cranston, RI
Paul Gessing
President & CEO, Rio Grande Foundation
Stephen Goldsmith
Former Mayor, City of Indianapolis
Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
James Grichnik, M.D., Ph.D.
Cleveland Clinic, Indian River Hospital; Medical Director, Scully-Welsh Cancer Center.
Gillian K. Hadfield
Professor of Law, Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, University of Toronto
Jonathan D. Haidt, Ph.D.
Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, NYU Stern School of Business
Robert Heineman, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Alfred University
Eda Henries
Founder, Henries and Co.
Frederick M. Hess
Director, Education Policy Studies, AEI
Heather R. Higgins
President, Randolph Foundation
Paul T. Hill
Founder, Center on Reinventing Public Education
Research Professor, University of Washington Bothell
Quin Hillyer
Columnist, Washington Examiner
Philip K. Howard
Chair, Common Good
Lawyer, Author
Glenn Hubbard, Ph.D.
Russell L. Carson Professor Columbia Business School; Former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisors
Howard Husock
Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Bobby Ray Inman
Retired Admiral United States Navy; Former Director, National Security Agency
Bryan Jones, Ph.D.
Professor, J. J. "Jake" Pickle Regents Chair in Congressional Studies, University of Texas Austin
Marshall D. Kapp, J.D., M.P.H.
Professor Emeritus, Florida State University
Thomas H. Kean
Former Governor of New Jersey
Donald F. Kettl, Ph.D.
Sid Richardson Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas Austin
James M. Kilts
Partner, Centerview Capital; Former CEO, Gillette
Charles E.M. Kolb
Former President, Committee for Economic Development
Kent Lassman
President and CEO, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Shelly Lazarus
Chairman emeritus, Ogilvy & Mather
John LeBoutillier
Former Congressman, news commentator
Yuval Levin
Editor-in-Chief, National Affairs
Paul C. Light, Ph.D.
Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service, New York University
Robert E. Litan
Economist, former Director of Economic Studies Brookings Institution
Joe Lonsdale
Founding Partner, 8VC, Co-Founder Palantir Technologies
Dan Lufkin
Co-Founder, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
Will Marshall
President, Progressive Policy Institute
David Mathews
President, Kettering Foundation; Former Secretary U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; Former President, University of Alabama
E.J. McMahon
Research Director, Empire Center
Lance Odden
Former Headmaster, Taft School
David Osborne
Progressive Policy Institute
Co-Author, Reinventing Government
Donald J. Palmisano, M.D., J.D.
Former President, American Medical Association
Rohan Pavuluri
CEO & Co-Founder, Upsolve
Jonathan Petts
Executive Director, Immigrants Like Us
Kim Polese
Chairwoman, CrowdSmart, Inc.
Alfred M. Rankin, Jr.
CEO, Nacco Industries Inc.
David S. Schoenbrod
Professor, New York Law School
Peter H. Schuck
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale University
Alan K. Simpson
Former U.S. Senator from Wyoming
Lenore Skenazy
President, Let Grow
Dann Mead Smith
President, Washington Policy Center
James S. Smith
Arnold D. Frese Foundation
Lise T. Spacapan
Former Commissioner DCFS, State of Illinois
Walter Stahr
Biographer
C. Eugene Steuerle
Economist, Urban Institute
Bob Stone
Former senior US official, including “Energizer in Chief, Reinventing Government Initiative”
Ryan Streeter
Director of Domestic Policy, AEI
Jim Strock
Founding Secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency
Joe Tanner
Former Commissioner, Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Vincent S. Tese
Former Chair, New York State Urban Development Corp.
John “Thunder” Thornton
CEO/Founder, Thunder Enterprises
John D. Tickle
Chairman, Strongwell Corporation
Bill Valdez
Former President, Senior Executives Association; Former Official, U.S. Department of Energy
Chilton Varner
Partner, King & Spalding
Paul R. Verkuil
Former Chair, Administrative Conference of the United States; Former President, College of William and Mary
Philip Wallach, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Josh S. Weston
Honorary Chairman, Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
Robert Whitcomb
Former Editorial page editor, The Providence Journal
Ruth Wooden
Retired President, Public Agenda
Tom Wright
President & CEO, Regional Plan Association
William T. Young, Jr.
Businessman, Civic Leader