Why a GREATER BILL?

aGREATER.US is a nine month competition to find the best bipartisan/nonpartisan ideas to make us, the big US, the United States—GREATER.

Any U.S citizen over 13 years of age (youth are citizens, too) can rate each idea, one to five stars. There is, also, a bipartisan rating given every bill—the weighted average of fiscal conservatives', independents', and social liberals' ratings.

The top three idea/bills nationally and the top three statewide will comprise the GREATER BILL(s) 2012.

We will then ask all the candidates to sign the GREATER BILL 2012 Pledge that if elected, they will co-sponsor, vote for, and see to the passage of GREATER BILL—in the first fortnight of the next legislative session.

Why would candidates sign the pledge? Because their opponent probably will, and since most Americans are to some degree fiscally conservative and socially liberal—we, the GREATER Middle, have the power to swing any election we choose.

Let's choose to force leadership on the issues, to do what government can't or won't.

Don't get us wrong, politicians are great but we all need to be greater. Please join us in what could be the greatest experiment in politics since 1776.

We have essentially the same political system as when it took weeks to complete a simple correspondence. Now communication is instant and incessant. Back in 1776, very few individuals were learned. Now anyone with a smartphone walks around with practically the sum of the world's knowledge in their pocket. And we are proficient at processing that information.

Our politicians are great. Lobbyists and special interest groups are great. But we need to be GREATER. Many aspects of society were better in the past. But we can be GREATER, again. Members of Congress freely admit the system is dysfunctional. Corporate America is fixated on the profitability of the next quarter. The extreme Left and Right are shouting so loud the middle can't think—GREATER. What of the generations to come? Where are the jobs? What of the planet? Who is managing those risks?

The politics of "what" not the politics of "who"

You've probably experienced this: At a party, in a group of new acquaintances, the partiers seem to solve the world's problems. The conversation usually ends when someone says, "If only they would do that." We are they.

The politics of "how" not the politics of "when?"

A GREATER part of the national conversation needs to be about how we resolve important issues, and building consensus. And if that happens then the context and conditions for the more divisive issues might become easier to work through, too.

We can and should show leadership by taking a sliver of power back from a system that barely seems to manage.