A WORKING OPENING · AUTHOR REVIEW PENDING

We are still early.

America is 250 years old. I want to know what we must build for it to reach 1024.

I begin with a belief: we are still early. I believe this country is far from its pinnacle. There are discoveries we have yet to make, institutions we have yet to imagine, and forms of prosperity we have yet to share. The next stage of the American story deserves the ambition that built the earlier ones.

My confidence begins with the next generation. I believe young Americans can widen our circle of concern, find better ways to live together, and attempt things their parents could barely imagine. A country that gives them the freedom and tools to do that has an extraordinary resource.

Belief creates obligations. If I think America has centuries ahead of it, I have to care about what we leave behind. I have to ask whether our children will inherit institutions capable of learning, a government capable of serving, and an economy that rewards useful work. I have to ask what our power accomplishes abroad and what its costs mean at home.

A country with a long future needs people willing to put their judgments on the record. Some of mine will be wrong. I have built election models, made assumptions, and found reasons to revise them. That experience belongs in this book because confidence becomes more useful when other people can examine its foundations.

When I say 1024, I am asking us to lengthen our sense of responsibility. Imagine the Americans who will inherit what we begin now. Imagine the standards they might use to judge us. Then ask what we should start building while the choice is still ours.

The Ownership Revolution

America’s Fourth Revolution

The American dream should leave something in your name.

1. The unfinished American promise

America’s fourth revolution should make ownership ordinary: more Americans holding savings, productive investments, businesses, and homes they can afford to keep. Work should build a stake. My proposals connect qualifying service to donated investment awards, make retirement savings more portable, replace Medicare and Medicaid with universal baseline care through Medicare+, and create enforceable routes from rent to ownership. Temporary consumption taxes and a separate debt plan must show their own bills.

I believe America’s greatest era is ahead. That confidence begins with the next generation and a practical obligation: leave them a country they can afford to participate in. National success should reach the household. Extraordinary companies matter, but so does the person working inside this economy who remains one missed paycheck away from trouble.

This is the argument behind Project 1024. The number expresses confidence that America has centuries of improvement ahead. It is not a claim that Rome lasted exactly eight hundred years. Civilizations renew themselves through choices about what to build and who gets to participate.

Here is my framework. The founding revolution established our independence. The industrial revolution changed what we could produce. The technological revolution changed what we could accomplish. The ownership revolution should widen the share of Americans who benefit from that productive power. These stages overlap; they are an argument about our direction, not a complete division of American history.

I want a pro-labor politics that helps workers become owners. That includes people raising children, caring for relatives, living with disabilities, and keeping communities running. Ownership can mean emergency savings, retirement investments, a business, or equity in a home. What matters is what remains after debts and bills, and whether it gives people greater independence. Buying a stake and keeping it are both part of the promise.

2. What the postwar settlement achieved

America has widened ownership before. Census figures show homeownership rising from 43.6 percent in 1940 to 61.9 percent in 1960. Millions of households gained a stake. Calling the postwar years an ownership failure would ignore that transformation. [1]

The gains were unequal. Discrimination shaped access to financing, neighborhoods, and rising property values. A good national average does not erase an unfair starting line. My argument is that we did not finish the job: access to a home or a retirement account differs from having enough income to afford either safely.

A house also concentrates risk. The owner owes a mortgage, pays for repairs, and depends partly on one property and neighborhood. Appreciation may increase wealth on paper while raising the entry price for the next buyer. We should care about both households.

There is an obvious historical challenge to this essay. George W. Bush also promoted an “ownership society,” including homeownership, retirement accounts, and health-care choices. The similarity deserves acknowledgment. The 2008 housing crash makes the promise of wider ownership harder to take on faith. A bipartisan Senate investigation identified high-risk lending, regulatory failures, inflated credit ratings, and investment-bank practices. Wider ownership alone does not explain the crisis. [14] [15]

The donated investment award proposed here starts with an asset rather than a mortgage obligation. That is a concrete difference for that component, not proof that the whole platform is safer. My housing guarantees and down-payment support could still encourage unsuitable borrowing or transfer losses to taxpayers. Section 9 has to answer that risk through affordable payments, enforceable contracts, and explicit treatment of defaults. An ownership slogan cannot substitute for those terms.

Retirement accounts provide another route to productive assets, but fees, contributions, access, and interruptions to paid work affect the result. Carry the ownership promise forward by measuring what families retain, rather than treating every new account or loan as a victory.

3. The turn toward consumption

The 1970s are part of this story: inflation, energy shocks, industrial competition, and changes in the monetary system arrived around the same period. The evidence does not support one decision explaining everything afterward.

In 1971, the United States stopped allowing foreign official holders to exchange dollars for Treasury gold. That was not the end of an ordinary American’s ability to exchange dollars at a bank; the change concerned foreign official convertibility. [2]

Today’s dollar is a fiat currency, without a promise of a fixed gold exchange. That makes monetary and fiscal discipline important, but gold reserves alone do not determine prices. Spending, supply, shortages, and shocks all belong in the explanation.

Inflation becomes personal when a paycheck buys less. If savings earn three percent while prices rise five percent, the balance grows but its purchasing power falls. Ownership policy should care about the goods and security an asset can buy, rather than its account value alone.

My broader concern is that buying became too dominant a picture of success. We became skilled at offering people another way to spend future income. Equally strong institutions should help them hold onto some of it. This is an argument about our priorities, not a causal finding from one saving-rate chart. The national saving rate also treats saving from income differently from gains in house or stock prices. [3]

The FIRE movement offers one deliberate route from earnings to financial independence. Its feasibility depends on income, health, housing, and responsibilities. The national challenge is to widen that possibility for people with little room in their budgets. Discipline matters. So do the conditions under which we ask people to exercise it.

4. Measure the transition

A rising stock market tells us less about a household with no investments and expensive debt than about someone who already owns substantial assets. Measure whether more families acquire a lasting stake and whether it improves their financial position.

The Federal Reserve’s 2025 survey reports that 56 percent of families owned stocks directly or indirectly, including through retirement accounts. Participation was 31 percent among the lower half by usual income and 97 percent among the highest tenth. Those are families, not individual Americans. [4]

An account alone does not close that gap. A family with $5,000 invested and $8,000 of credit-card debt has an asset, but the interest bill and lack of emergency cash still matter. Track assets after debts, emergency reserves, retirement savings, housing costs, and business ownership across ages and incomes.

Three tests should guide the program. Does it create saving that would otherwise not happen? Do participants retain the gain after fees, withdrawals, and losses? Does it reach households facing the greatest barriers?

Two programs might each report a thousand new accounts. One attracts existing investors moving money to collect a subsidy. The other helps families save for the first time. The totals match, but the public and donors bought different results. That is the useful meaning of additionality: what did the program actually add?

Publish the fees, participation, and retained assets. Financial education helps people understand choices; it does not create spare cash. The system should make it easier to establish a reserve, build assets, and keep control through ordinary setbacks.

5. Give labor a capital stake

Useful projects deserve credit across party lines. The qualified tips deduction and Trump Accounts are good projects. One recognizes workers; the other recognizes the value of starting ownership early. Political branding should not prevent us from recognizing a good direction. [5] [6]

“No tax on tips” is a deduction, capped at $25,000 annually for eligible tips in tax years 2025–2028, with income phaseouts and other rules. It does not erase payroll taxes or guarantee every worker a tax saving. Trump Accounts likewise have eligibility rules: the federal $1,000 pilot contribution is for qualifying U.S.-citizen children born in 2025–2028 with valid Social Security numbers. Neither program guarantees investment gains. [5] [6]

My proposal offers repeatable $5,000–$10,000 ownership awards for qualifying service, additional to compensation. Teaching, nursing, and other work improving American society belong in the design. The earlier service framework was six months or defined monthly service over four years. Repeat eligibility, caps, and service standards still need rules. School, disability, caregiving, supervision, and appropriate compensation must shape those rules, particularly for minors.

Private giving funds the awards. Corporations, individuals, and foundations already choose among charitable causes. This program would compete for those contributions by offering a direct stake to Americans serving the country. The addressable funding is giving we can attract, not every dollar of NGO revenue or an entitlement to existing charities’ assets.

Michael and Susan Dell’s $6.25 billion commitment to investment accounts for 25 million American children is a relevant example of philanthropy backing ownership. It is a commitment to their initiative, not funding pledged to ours or evidence that a similar sum will recur annually. [16]

Participants would choose bonds or a broad American-company index fund, such as a Vanguard S&P 500 fund. This is a proposal for ownership with investment risk, not a guaranteed five-percent return. Vanguard fee waivers would have to be secured. The proposed account would be visible and managed through an IRS portal, with emergency withdrawals subject to a charge whose terms remain to be set.

Patriotism also means showing up to make government work. Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia now works at the IRS; his February 2026 update confirms the move. Builders like him, working alongside experienced public servants, give me confidence that public systems can deliver with startup efficiency. His employment is verified; his participation in this program is not. My base-case ambition is to absorb administration within the IRS budget, so donations go entirely into awards. That is a delivery assumption to measure, not evidence that administration costs nothing. [17]

The program should publish gifts received, service completed, awards funded, fees, and assets retained. A pledged dollar, an awarded dollar, and a retirement balance are three different things. Building ownership earns credibility when all three are visible.

6. Touch the third rail

Now we touch the third rail of American politics: entitlements.

Americans over forty-five in 2030 should be confident they will receive Social Security. That is the commitment. Keeping it requires a financing plan for the promised payments while younger Americans build ownership. Donations to their accounts do not pay current retirees, and ending future eligibility does not make existing obligations disappear. Silence is not a financing plan.

For the younger cohort, my direction is to replace the future Social Security retirement entitlement with greater access to owned capital. The goal is for more people to have assets working for them, rather than organize retirement solely around a government check. This does not promise an easy retirement or a matching investment return. Repeatable service awards are one route into ownership, not a demonstrated income replacement for every person.

Social Security’s existing earnings calculation uses wage indexing, while subsequent cost-of-living adjustments address inflation. It does not simply track the minimum wage. The proposed account is different: participants own investments whose value can rise or fall, and early withdrawals reduce what remains. [18]

The scope of protection must be written precisely. The age measurement date, treatment of someone exactly forty-five, and protected benefit formula remain author decisions. So do younger workers’ accrued rights, disability and survivor protections, and provision for people unable to complete qualifying service. The promise depends on answering them.

There is no applicable published cost estimate for this particular transition because those choices have not been specified. A general Social Security projection cannot be relabeled as its score. The model therefore records the transition cost as unpriced. If payroll contributions change, every dollar diverted from existing obligations needs replacement financing. If they continue, the proposal must explain what contributors receive.

Savings should also follow the worker. Portability and transparent, low-cost choices make earned assets easier to retain. Traditional retirement savings generally postpone income tax; qualifying Roth withdrawals follow different rules. A move from pretax savings into a Roth can create a current tax bill. Portability and tax forgiveness are separate proposals, and any relief needs a budget entry. [7]

Medicare is a separate reform below. Protecting Social Security does not mean keeping today’s Medicare and Medicaid structures unchanged. Touching the third rail means stating each commitment, costing the transition, and accepting responsibility for what remains unresolved.

7. Health care that protects what you build

A medical crisis can threaten years of careful saving. Health care belongs at the center of an ownership agenda because financial independence is fragile when necessary care is unaffordable.

Medicare+ would replace Medicare and Medicaid through competing private firms while providing baseline care for everyone. Hospitals should establish the medically appropriate path to protect a patient’s life, with payment administration following care rather than obstructing it. Additional insurance could sit above that baseline. The covered benefit and who ultimately owes each bill still have to be defined.

Competition could operate within the patient’s care pathway: one firm financing a surgery, another offering imaging or another service. Breaking a pathway into pieces does not remove responsibility for the whole patient. The design needs an accountable party for coordination, complications, disputed payments, and continuity. Those rules have not been selected, so the model cannot assume fragmentation saves money.

The transition would run for ten years, with existing Medicare and Medicaid resources supporting the new system. The goal at the end is a budget ten percent below a 2019 reference level. Whether that means nominal dollars or preserved 2019 purchasing power, and whether it caps public funding or all baseline-care spending, must be settled before claiming a financed universal package.

Hospitals would bear responsibility for demonstrating cost efficiency against approved revenues, with IRS financial audits central to enforcement under the proposed law. Actuarial and clinical review should account for patients’ needs, staffing, equipment, regional costs, and outcomes. An audit can identify an improper payment; it cannot make treatment costless or replace a clinical standard.

Recovering money from a hospital’s endowment or other assets requires defined legal authority, evidence, an appeals process, and protection for patient access. Medicare+ proposes new responsibilities; it cannot assume the IRS already has every power needed. Maryland’s hospital global budgets provide a mechanism to study, not a national savings estimate for this different program. [8]

There should also be room for new insurers younger than ten years to improve care. Their proposed ten-percent incentive needs a clear denominator. If equivalent care falls from $100 to $90, a tenth of the $10 saving is $1. A tenth of the $90 cost is $9. Those reward different things and leave different bills. Neither should reward firms merely for enrolling healthier people.

The test must track access and outcomes alongside costs. The full bill includes baseline benefits, necessary capacity, administration, coordination, transition, and incentives. Until the benefit and funding rules are specified, savings from competition and audits remain unpriced. Care for everyone is the objective. A defined benefit and a complete bill are how we test whether this design delivers it.

8. Tax consumption, protect entry

People should keep more of what they earn and have room to build a stake. My proposal shifts part of the tax burden toward spending: a ten-percent federal consumption tax for ten years, a separate ten-percent gasoline levy, and income-tax relief for lower earners.

A tax on purchases also uses part of the paycheck. The whole package must leave intended households better off; judging the income-tax cut without the checkout bill would hide part of the policy.

The taxable base needs a legal definition. The inflation basket measures price changes, not a ready-made list of taxable sales. Rent, health care, and the estimated housing service homeowners receive from their own homes require specific treatment. An estimated service is not a purchase with a receipt.

On a hypothetical $15 trillion annual taxable base, ten percent produces $1.5 trillion before exemptions, nonpayment, administration, and changes in spending. This illustrates scale, not Treasury receipts. Subtract an illustrative $400 billion of rebates and $1.1 trillion remains before income-tax relief and other costs. The same dollar cannot finance tax relief, health care, and debt repayment.

Rebates belong inside the design because households with little spare income cannot easily reduce essential spending. Their timing matters: next spring’s refund does not pay this week’s higher bill. The gas levy also needs its own base and an explicit rule for overlap with the consumption tax, including people with few transport alternatives.

Digital records may simplify administration, but lawful cash use and privacy deserve protection. Eligibility should not require unnecessary collection of personal information.

The ten-year expiration must be real. If the tax begins in 2027 and ends after 2036, continuing programs need funding in 2037. That is an illustrative calendar, not an adopted start date. Show the later bill before spending the temporary receipts.

9. A home you can afford to own

Housing is where many families can picture ownership. Getting through the door requires a down payment, an affordable monthly bill, and enough left for life afterward.

Higher interest rates can restrain borrowing and pressure asset prices. They also make loans more expensive for buyers, builders, businesses, and government. Savers and borrowers experience the same change differently. A lower sale price does not automatically create an affordable home.

The ownership-society objection from section 2 belongs here. Down-payment help and guarantees can increase access, but they can also encourage larger debts or leave taxpayers absorbing losses. The 2008 crash is a reason to specify underwriting, borrower capacity, and default treatment, not evidence that broader ownership itself must fail. [15]

One proposed form of support purchases qualifying completed homes at independently assessed discounts, then allocates them through competitive bids with enforceable affordability and ownership conditions. A discount is valuable only if the home is worth buying. Location, defects, vacancy, maintenance, and demand matter, alongside rules preventing connected parties from unloading bad investments on the public.

Another option is rent that builds equity: the resident’s enforceable share of value after relevant debts. The contract should state how each payment adds to that share, when it becomes theirs, and what happens if they move, miss a payment, or the property is sold.

If a hypothetical contract credits $500 monthly to resident equity, twelve payments add $6,000 before fees or losses. A statement and enforceable rights must support that figure. Calling rent ownership does not create an asset.

A ten-percent down-payment program also needs a clear structure. Advancing cash differs from guaranteeing a lender against loss. A guarantee may require no immediate payment but create an obligation when a borrower defaults. Fees, recoveries, and financing costs determine the result. If a public advance carries a ten-percent repayment premium, the contract must say who pays and when.

Success means useful homes, secure owners, manageable payments, and public costs we can justify. The next generation needs a route in that survives scrutiny of the small print and does not depend on prices rising forever.

10. Pay the bill, then reduce the debt

My fiscal goal is overall federal balance by 2030, then a return to pre-pandemic fiscal-year 2019 gross federal debt by 2040. Treasury puts that reference at about $22.72 trillion on September 30, 2019. Gross debt includes debt held by the public and amounts owed to federal accounts. The same definition belongs at both ends. [9]

A deficit is a year’s shortfall; debt is accumulated borrowing. Closing the annual gap stops borrowing through that gap. Paying down old debt requires more money beyond it. The target is in actual dollars, rather than merely a declining share of a growing economy.

The central obligation is to show what remains after rebates, tax relief, protected Social Security, Medicare+, housing, and administration. Donated awards belong in their own ledger: a privately funded asset is not Treasury revenue, and its investment gains belong to the participant. Any donor tax treatment also belongs in the fiscal ledger; no special deduction is assumed here. These scenarios show what the budget would need to achieve, not what this platform has funded.

The earlier ten-percent bond proposal has its own cost. Borrowing $1 trillion at a ten-percent annual coupon requires $100 billion yearly interest and repayment of principal. A coupon is the promised interest payment. Borrowing provides financing we owe back, rather than revenue we earned.

A special bond’s rate also differs from the average cost of all federal debt. Existing borrowing does not reset overnight, and the Federal Reserve makes its own monetary-policy decisions. The account’s ordinary bond option is not a promise that every participant earns ten percent.

Gold deserves the same accounting. Buying reserves requires cash or borrowing and creates no automatic recurring revenue. Recessions and the consumption tax’s expiration also belong in the plan. Fiscal discipline has to survive difficult years, with each obligation counted.

11. Put the predictions on the record

Readers should be able to check my work before we know the outcome. That means separating a prediction I have estimated, a price from a betting market, and an example of what happens under chosen assumptions. They answer different questions.

The first 1024 inflation model uses official consumer-price data and recent patterns to estimate the next monthly change. The technical name is autoregression. The idea is straightforward: ask how much earlier price movements help explain the next one, then test that approach against simpler guesses.

The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, is seasonally adjusted: it tries to remove price patterns that recur during the year, making neighboring months easier to compare. The baseline uses the latest thirty-six calendar months of changes. That helps explain what the number measures; it does not make a household’s particular basket identical to the national one. [13]

The dated October 2026 estimate is a 0.41 percent monthly increase. A basket costing $100 would cost about $100.41 after that change. This is one month’s movement, not the annual inflation rate. The model’s eighty-percent range is roughly 0.13 to 0.69 percent under its assumptions. [12]

That range shows uncertainty, and the actual result can fall outside it. The model can miss shocks. Its historical evaluation also uses revised data rather than reconstructing every number available at the time. The interval leaves out uncertainty about the estimated model itself. Readers deserve those limits beside the number.

Kalshi and Polymarket provide another signal through traded contracts. A market price tells us what people are willing to trade at under that contract’s rules. It is useful evidence, affected by available buyers, sellers, and the gap between their prices. It is not an independently produced 1024 forecast. [10] [11]

Definitions matter. October inflation released in November is still October inflation. A contract about an annual rate differs from one about a monthly change. Rounded results and strict thresholds can also settle differently. We should match the question before comparing the answers.

The election inventory currently tracks 506 contests; 39 have dated market quotes. An independent national election forecast has not been released. The simulation examples demonstrate the machinery using invented inputs. More simulations cannot turn invented inputs into evidence about real candidates.

Election uncertainty also travels across races. If the same problem causes polls to underestimate one party in several states, their errors move together. A national model has to allow that shared surprise, rather than treat every race as a separate coin toss.

Every real prediction should keep its issue date, inputs, and eventual result. We should compare errors with simple benchmarks and preserve the misses. One correct call is a beginning; repeated predictions let people judge whether our confidence was justified.

Policy deserves the same scrutiny. Did people retain more assets? Did care become more affordable? Did housing assistance create useful supply? Election results can show political support. They cannot, by themselves, prove that our proposed economic mechanism worked. The ownership argument deserves its own tests.

12. America’s next stage

America’s next stage should give more people a stake in its productive power. The proposals in this essay begin with service that earns donated ownership awards, accounts people can understand and retain, and housing contracts that deliver real equity. They pair that ambition with protected Social Security for the older cohort, Medicare+ for universal baseline care, and a separate fiscal plan whose obligations remain visible.

Each institution has a job to demonstrate. The service program must turn received donations into retained assets. Insurers and hospitals must improve care without hiding costs or excluding difficult patients. Developers must deliver useful housing on enforceable terms. Government must publish what it paid, what changed, and what failed.

Defense spending belongs in that standard. My proposed three-member review body would examine programs, costs, and results under powers established by law and a defined relationship with Congress. Announcing waste produces no saving. Identifying a program to change, explaining the consequences, and following through might.

Several author decisions remain open: the service-award interval and caps; the precise Social Security protection and transition; the Medicare+ benefit, payer responsibility, and budget definition; and the housing guarantee’s allocation of losses. They determine feasibility. The accompanying math makes those choices visible instead of supplying convenient answers on my behalf.

My confidence in America does not depend on pretending the work is finished. We have widened opportunity before and can do more. The ownership revolution should be judged by Americans who complete useful service, keep assets through setbacks, receive needed care, and gain a home they can afford to own. Put those outcomes on the record, show their cost, and keep improving until the promise reaches the household.

Narration: A matching recording of this edition is pending.