It’s an exciting year to do this. Because of our 3-for-3 record successfully championing into law measures wise enough to attract broad bipartisan support, Congress is listening to us more than ever.
Below is our 2023 Top 10 Bipartisan Issues list. We describe each topic so you can judge which is most promising. Your ratings will determine which topic we choose.
By promising, we mean the best combination of meaningful and achievable.
- Meaningful—Passing this legislation would make a real difference.
- Achievable—Issues with meaningful proposals that have a decent chance of passing in Congress because there is already significant bipartisan support.
With the current Farm Bill expiring, reauthorization legislation is one of the most likely bills to pass this year. The legislation covers a broader range of topics than the name suggests. Most significantly, more than 75% of the over $700 billion in baseline five-year spending is for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Previously known as food stamps, SNAP is the nation’s largest food benefits program for those in need. Each year about 42 million Americans receive a total of over $120 billion (an average of between $2,500 and $3,000) in SNAP benefits to help them put food on the table. Another 5% of Farm Bill spending is for conservation programs on farms and in our nation’s forests.
America’s opioid crisis continues to grow more severe. More than 80,000 Americans per year die from opioid overdoses, including fentanyl. Estimates of the total economic burden of opioid misuse range from a low of $140 billion (an average of about $425 per person in the US) to over $1 trillion per year (over $3,300 per person). Those expenses include the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.
Several bipartisan proposals would increase accessibility to training and education that is more directly connected to careers than most college degrees. There is an increasing consensus that these bills would meaningfully boost the nation’s economic prosperity and result in more people working in better paid and more rewarding occupations for three reasons. First, alternatives to four-year college degrees currently have far less federal investment. These alternatives, like vocational and technical training and apprenticeships, can lead to financially and professionally rewarding occupations, including as a plumber, electrician, truck driver, automotive repair technician, certified nursing assistant, and IT professional. Second, the rising costs of college degrees saddle students with levels of debt that can be overwhelming. Third, the demand for well-trained professionals in many of these areas is going unmet, limiting economic growth.
The US is unusual in how long it takes for federal agencies, state and local governments, private companies, and public/private partnerships to get permits to build infrastructure and energy projects. Much of the delay comes from the unique way that the US approaches the review of a project’s environmental impacts. While permitting in other developed countries with environmental standards as high or higher than those in the US typically takes about two years, in the US it often takes five years and can take ten years or more. The longer processes add significantly to the cost of these projects. One analysis found that a six-year delay in permitting doubles the cost of a project.
Small businesses were especially hard hit by COVID. Recognizing that much of our job and economic growth comes from them, there is bipartisan interest in helping small businesses. Proposals include:
The opioid crisis is just one of many indications of a growing mental health crisis in the country. More than 50% of Americans will be diagnosed with mental illness at some point in their lifetime. In any given year, one in five Americans will experience mental illness. A range of bipartisan legislation is under consideration to expand and improve mental health resources in this country, including to address substance abuse. Various proposals would increase access and affordability and would invest in making treatments more effective. Some of the urgency to address the problem this year stems from the funding and regulatory provisions provided during the pandemic that are expiring. There is particular interest in expanding and improving mental health care for youth and for people who live in rural areas or have low incomes.Specific proposals under consideration include:
Many Big Tech corporations, including social media firms, make money from the extensive personal information they collect about each of us. Using algorithms and artificial intelligence, they draw on our personal information to offer ads that are more effective for their customers. Concerns about data privacy and monopoly power have caused a bipartisan groundswell in Congress to act.Mounting evidence of how devastating the use of social media is for the mental health of youth, including contributing to higher suicide rates among teenage girls, have given additional urgency to measures that would address that problem.
Healthcare is becoming increasingly difficult to access in much of rural America. The core of the problem is attracting enough doctors and other healthcare professionals to work there. Proposals to address the problem that are drawing bipartisan interest include:
Healthcare costs in the US continue to increase substantially. Spending on healthcare has gone from 5% of the total economy in 1960 to 18% today or about $12,900 per person. There is some bipartisan agreement that one important reason for increasing healthcare costs is a lack of transparency about the true costs and prices of various products and services. Without knowing the price, and the actual costs behind those prices, patients and insurance providers don’t have an option to shop for more cost-effective services.A second point on which many agree is that increasing consolidation in the healthcare industry is contributing to increasing costs because it also reduces competition. For example, hospitals and physician practices are under increasing pressure to join larger hospital systems.
Our system of managing immigration is ineffective and inappropriate in virtually everyone’s view. There is wide agreement that more illegal immigration exists than is appropriate, safe, or fair for anyone. There is also shared concern that on one hand our economy depends on undocumented workers, yet on the other hand our system consigns them to a dangerous life in the shadows. Concern is even higher for the children of undocumented workers who have grown up here and don’t know the country from where their parents came or its language yet face the prospects of being deported there.Proposals to address the problems include: