PROJECT 2026: A FREE MARKET FOR AMERICA
The Founders’ Goal: National Prosperity
The Founders believed liberty -- political and economic -- was the foundation of growth.
Americans want a free market where everyone can compete on a level playing field — not a fixed market rigged for the super wealthy.
The Rigged Game Today
Too many billionaires don’t compete fairly. They buy political influence. Politicians then reward them with lucrative government contracts, funneling more wealth back to the same billionaires. The cycle repeats, and only the select few win.
Campaign Finance: A Tsunami of Legal Bribes
A flood of billionaire and big corporate money is swamping democracy. These “legal bribes” fuel polarization and rig outcomes, making liberty — and especially the pursuit of happiness — impossible to sustain.
Our Founders envisioned government by the people and for the people — not one where lawmakers listen mainly to those with the deepest pockets.
Forty Years of a Fixed Game
- Corporate tax rates have plunged, while ordinary Americans pay more.
- Protections for workers, consumers, and small investors have been gutted.
- Universal healthcare and paid leave are standard abroad — but not here.
- Billionaires now face little real competition.
Corporate Welfare vs. Public Welfare
Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, Wall Street, and defense giants have collected hundreds of billions in subsidies, bailouts, and contracts.
Their CEOs now earn 300× more than workers did a generation ago.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans fall behind — and public trust in democracy collapses.
Enough.
We the people declare that 2026 marks the dawn of a new era — one where:
- The rules are fair.
- The market is truly free.
- Hard-working Americans can build their own success.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Campaign Finance & Citizens United
The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate and individual billionaire spending in U.S. elections, fundamentally warping the democratic playing field.
Since then, outside election spending has surged more than 900%, with Super PACs and dark money groups pouring tens of billions into races at every level.
Over the same period, the wealth of the richest 400 Americans has more than tripled — rising from roughly $1.6 trillion in 2010 to about $6.6 trillion today. But while billionaire wealth has soared, the typical American’s earnings have barely budged — and in some recent years, have declined. The gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else has widened dramatically.
This parallel explosion of political money and concentrated wealth has given billionaires and special interests unprecedented leverage over policy outcomes, drowning out the voices of ordinary citizens. No wonder democracy is in decline - Billionaires and big corporations are taking all the riches and creating a rigged political system in the process.
The Founders anticipated the danger to democracy that unchecked wealth would be.
Learn more about what they thought below.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE: THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM
What the Founders Believed (and Built In) Regarding Large Money Influence
1. Elections & Civic Virtue
- The founders believed that for elections to be legitimate, they had to be free of undue external pressures — from wealthy domestic interest groups or from foreign governments — so that the will of the people could be accurately expressed. Though there was no explicit campaign finance regulation like today, the framework of laws, norms, and constitutional checks was shaped by a sense that big money (domestic or foreign) could warp politics.
2. Skepticism Toward Factionalism & Corrupting Wealth
- While not always explicitly about “campaign finance” in modern terms, the Founders were wary of concentrated domestic influence — large interest groups, powerful donors, aristocratic structures — especially if they overlapped with foreign interests. They believed in representative government mediated by institutions that could check abuses of power, including wealth.
Gaps & What The Founders Did Not Do
- The Founders did not foresee modern corporations, PACs, electronic media, or global fundraising networks. So they did not draft laws that specifically regulate large private domestic money in campaigns in the way we do today. The current large-money influence is a continuation (or exacerbation) of the same problem the Founders tried to guard against — only now far more complex and amplified by technology, globalization, and powerful corporate and philanthropic entities.
Chicago's own Pope Leo XIV — on the causes of deep American polarization
