What If Government Actually Did Big Things That Mattered?

The Case for Bold, Public Action That Changes Everything

We've grown so accustomed to small thinking. Incremental policy tweaks. Pilot programs that go nowhere. Government as manager of decline rather than architect of possibility.

But what if we remembered that government-at its best-is simply us, pooling our resources to do together what none of us could do alone? What if we stopped apologizing for ambition and started building things so magnificent, so obviously beneficial, that they become immune to the usual political sabotage?

What if government did big things that matter-things that make the world dramatically better for all of us collectively, while also transforming each of our lives individually?

Not in some distant theoretical future. Not for someone else. For you. This year. This decade.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Test Case: What If We Just Solved Energy?

Here's a genuinely radical idea: What if the federal government put solar panels on every home in America?

Not tax credits. Not subsidies for the wealthy who can afford the upfront cost. Not a pilot program in three states. Every single-family home. All 140 million of them. In five years.

The kind of project that makes people say "that's impossible" right before it becomes inevitable.

Let's talk about what happens when government thinks big enough that it actually breaks through to the other side of possible.

The Deal: Pay Half, Save Half, Then Pay Nothing

Here's how it works, dead simple:

Today: You pay $140/month on average for electricity from your utility company.

Tomorrow (with solar):

• Years 1-19: You pay $70/month to the government. You keep the other $70.
• Years 20-40+: You pay nothing except a $20 grid connection fee.

That's it. That's the whole deal.

Your electric bill gets cut in half the day your panels go on. Not someday. Not after you earn enough credits. The day the crew finishes the installation, you stop paying the utility and start saving $840 a year.

For doing absolutely nothing except letting the government put solar panels on your roof.

The Individual Math: Your Family's 40-Year Windfall

Let's say you get solar installed in Year 3 of the rollout. Here's your personal financial story:

Without this program (business as usual):

• Pay $140/month for electricity for 40 years
• Total cost: $67,200

With this program:

• Years 1-2: Pay $140/month to your utility = $3,360
• Years 3-19: Pay $70/month to the government = $14,280
• Years 20-40: Pay $20/month grid fee = $5,040
• Total cost: $22,680

Your personal savings: $44,520 over 40 years

But it's better than that. Because that $70 you save every month during the payment period? You can invest it, pay down debt, spend it on your kids, upgrade your home, start a business-whatever you want. That's $840 every single year in your pocket starting the moment the panels go live.

And after Year 19, when the system is paid off? You've got virtually free electricity for the next 20+ years while everyone who didn't get solar is still paying full freight.

The National Math: $3.1 Trillion in Wealth Creation

Scale that up across all 140 million homes:

The program costs: $2 trillion over 5 years (about $14,000 per home for equipment, installation, and program administration)

How it's paid for: Households pay $70/month for approximately 19 years until the system is fully paid off

What we get:

• Immediate economic stimulus: $120 billion per year flowing into household budgets instead of utility companies
• Cumulative savings during payoff: $1.68 trillion over 19 years while people are still paying
• Post-payoff savings: $220 billion per year in perpetuity once the system is paid off
• 30-year net benefit to American households: $3.1 trillion

This isn't accounting magic. This is what happens when you build infrastructure that produces value instead of just consuming it.

Why This Is Different from Everything Else Government Does

Most government programs cost you money so someone else can get a benefit. Or they benefit you abstractly-cleaner air, safer roads, national defense-in ways you can't see in your bank account.

This program does something rarer: it gives you an immediate, tangible benefit while also creating massive collective benefits.

For you personally:

• Lower bills starting immediately
• Protection from utility rate hikes
• Energy independence
• Home value increase
• Lifetime savings of $35,000-$50,000

For all of us collectively:

• Energy independence (no more foreign oil leverage)
• Dramatic emissions reduction
• Grid resilience
• Manufacturing renaissance (someone has to make 140 million solar systems)
• Millions of good-paying installation jobs
• $3+ trillion in national wealth creation

It's not either/or. It's magnificently both/and.

This Is What Government Is Actually For

The private sector won't do this. Can't do this. The economics work brilliantly at scale, but there's no way to capture the returns privately when the benefits are distributed across 140 million homes over 40 years.

The financing alone is impossible without sovereign power. No bank will write you a 20-year loan at reasonable rates for solar panels. But the federal government can borrow at 3-4% and spread the cost across the entire population.

The coordination is impossible privately. Try getting utilities to voluntarily obsolete their own business model. Try getting 140 million homeowners to individually install solar even when the lifetime economics are positive.

This is exactly the kind of thing that government exists to do: projects so large, so long-term, so universally beneficial that only collective action can make them happen.

The Politics: How Do You Kill a Program That's Saving People $840 a Year?

Here's the beautiful thing about big, bold programs that benefit people immediately:

They become politically invincible.

Imagine you're in Year 3 of the rollout. There are already 84 million homes with solar panels. Those families are saving real money every single month. Their neighbors are waiting for their installation date.

Now imagine a politician campaigning on canceling the program.

"I'm going to take away your solar panels and make you start paying $140/month again to the utility company."

Good luck with that.

The longer the program runs, the stronger it gets. By Year 5, you've got 140 million households-virtually every voter-either enjoying the benefits or waiting for their turn.

You can't kill a program that's actively making people's lives better. This isn't a subsidy for someone else. This isn't an abstract social benefit. This is money in their pocket every month.

That's political genius disguised as public policy.

What Else Could We Do If We Thought This Way?

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

What if we built high-speed rail? Not little pilot lines. A genuine national network that makes flying between cities obsolete and gives every American access to fast, clean transportation.

What if we built universal childcare? Not means-tested. Not tax credits. Actual facilities, with trained workers, where any parent can drop off their kids and go to work without paying $2,000 a month.

What if we made public universities free? Not loan forgiveness programs that help some people sometimes. Free. Full stop. Funded the same way we fund high schools.

What if we built social housing? Beautiful, well-designed apartments in desirable neighborhoods, permanently affordable, that pull down the entire housing market and make cities livable again.

What if we actually fixed the electrical grid? Upgraded the whole thing to handle renewable energy, extreme weather, and 21st-century demand. So you never lose power. Ever.

Same model. Big upfront investment. Universal access. Long-term payoff. Immediate individual benefit. Massive collective gain.

The Objections (And Why They're Wrong)

"The government can't do big things efficiently."

The government built the Interstate Highway System. The Apollo Program. The Internet. The nationwide electrical grid. Social Security. Medicare. The national parks. The Post Office network. The GI Bill that created the middle class.

We've forgotten how to do it, but we absolutely can. This isn't about government being inherently competent or incompetent. It's about designing programs that are so obviously beneficial that they generate their own constituency and political protection.

"This is too expensive."

It costs $2 trillion over five years. The 2017 tax cuts cost $1.9 trillion over 10 years and didn't build a single thing. We spent $8 trillion on wars in the Middle East. We can afford this. The question is: do we want to?

Besides, this isn't really an expense-it's an investment that generates returns. After 19 years, it's pure profit. $220 billion a year in household savings in perpetuity.

"What about people who rent? What about apartments?"

Phase 2. This is the single-family home rollout. Next, we figure out the apartment building model, community solar for renters, commercial installations. You don't have to solve everything on day one. You just have to start.

"The utilities will never allow it."

Then we give them a choice: transition to becoming grid services companies with guaranteed revenues, or fight a program that gives 140 million voters lower electric bills. Their call.

The Deeper Point: We've Forgotten How to Want Big Things

Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that ambition is naive. That incrementalism is wisdom. That the best we can hope for is slightly better management of decline.

But that's not wisdom. That's exhaustion masquerading as realism.

The truth is: big things are often easier than small things.

Small things get nibbled to death by interest groups and procedural objections. Big things-if they're designed right-create their own momentum. They're too obvious, too beneficial, too popular to stop.

You know what's hard? Passing a means-tested tax credit that helps 3% of households reduce their energy burden by 12% if they earn between 80% and 120% of median income in counties with population density above a certain threshold and can navigate a 47-page application.

You know what's easy? "We're putting solar panels on your house. Your electric bill is now half. You're welcome."

The Choice We're Actually Making

Every year we don't do this is a choice.

We're choosing to let American households pay $240 billion a year to utility companies instead of building infrastructure that makes electricity nearly free.

We're choosing to import energy and send money overseas instead of achieving energy independence.

We're choosing to let climate change accelerate instead of making the single biggest emissions reduction we could possibly make.

We're choosing to let housing costs eat people alive instead of lowering the second-biggest household expense to almost nothing.

Most of all, we're choosing to believe that government can't do big beautiful things that dramatically improve people's lives.

That's the choice. And it's a choice we're making every single day.

What Happens When You Think Big Enough

Here's what I believe: Most people have never experienced government making their life tangibly, dramatically better.

They've experienced government taking taxes and not seeing much return. They've experienced bureaucracy and red tape. They've experienced programs that help other people, maybe, somewhere, theoretically.

But imagine experiencing this:

Year 3, Month 7. A crew shows up at your house. They work for three days. They install solar panels on your roof and a battery system in your garage. They hook it all up. They test it. They leave.

Next month: Your utility bill disappears. You get a single charge for $70 from the federal government. You save $70.

Every month after that: Same thing. $70 payment. $70 savings. Month after month. Year after year.

Year 19: The payment stops. Now you're saving $120 a month. $1,440 a year. For free. For the rest of your life.

That's not abstract policy. That's not someone else's benefit. That's your life getting better because your government did something big enough to matter.

And once people experience that-once they realize that government *can* make their lives dramatically better-everything changes.

Because then they start asking: What else could we do?

The Invitation

This isn't really about solar panels.

This is about remembering that we can do big things. That we're allowed to want big things. That the whole point of government-the entire reason we pool our resources and coordinate collective action-is to do together what none of us can do alone.

This is about rejecting the poverty of ambition that's infected our political imagination.

This is about building things so obviously good, so universally beneficial, so transformative that they become permanent. Not because we locked them in with clever legislation, but because people won't let anyone take them away.

We can cut every household's electric bill in half and then eliminate it entirely.

We can build national rail and universal childcare and social housing and modern infrastructure.

We can create massive collective benefits while making individual lives tangibly, dramatically better.

We just have to want to. We just have to remember that government-at its best-isn't a necessary evil or a burden to be minimized.

It's us. Working together. Building things that matter.

What if we did that?

What if we just started doing that again?