A think tank backed by Melinda French Gates’ philanthropy and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has published proposals for a future progressive administration.
Rebuilding USAID, giving Washington voting rights inside companies and changing the Supreme Court are among the proposals in a 2029 blueprint assembled by the Roosevelt Institute.
The think tank describes part of its approach as:
“adapting Donald Trump’s means to progressive ends.”
Former Biden officials are among the contributors outlining how a future progressive administration could exercise presidential power, direct investment and make its policies harder for successors to reverse. Published July 30, 2026, Building Up in 2029 contains 17 essays by 19 scholars and practitioners.
Contributor Madison Condon described the assignment as considering “what a national Democratic platform should look like.” The signed essays offer recommendations for a future administration; they include disagreements about how to proceed.
Rebuild USAID for overseas climate spending
A rebuilt USAID would form part of a renewed international climate-finance operation under recommendations from Notre Dame professor Erin Graham.
She calls for restored climate contributions and greater use of multilateral environmental funds. At the Development Finance Corporation and Export-Import Bank, she says personnel must be committed to “accelerating green investments and ending support for fossil fuels.”
Graham also proposes Green Climate Fund accreditation for a rebuilt USAID, potentially alongside the development-finance agency, and support for foreign governments implementing green industrial policy. Her recommendations seek continuity across administrations.
Give Washington corporate votes and potential vetoes
Washington would retain a say in the decisions of companies where it owns shares.
Roosevelt fellow Lenore Palladino writes that “public equity stakes should be voting shares” and discusses powers to “veto certain company actions.” That could mean government influence over investment, workforce spending, executive compensation and stock buybacks.
She also proposes changing the legal duties of directors representing public holdings to serve public objectives, and aligning public pension investments with industrial policy through a public asset manager while protecting retirement security.
Expand the Supreme Court and rewrite the Senate’s powers
K. Sabeel Rahman, a former Biden regulatory official, calls for legislation exploring “court expansion,” stricter judicial ethics rules and narrower Supreme Court jurisdiction.
He also wants institutions combining government and private involvement that would “insulate longer-term policymaking from bad-faith presidents.”
The Senate would also face structural changes. Will Dobbs-Allsopp discusses “denuding the Senate’s powers and reapportioning the chamber’s voting power.”
He advocates ending the filibuster and examines transferring confirmation and treaty powers to the House, adding states, or introducing nationally elected senators. He also cites others’ calls to abolish the Senate. He presents alternatives, some requiring constitutional changes.
Reverse expanded immigration-enforcement powers
Rahman also calls for reversing expanded surveillance and the growth of immigration-enforcement funding and discretion. He argues that these powers threaten social movements, including climate organizations—connecting immigration enforcement directly to his broader agenda for government.
Use presidential powers first, then make the policy permanent
A future president could impose a carbon charge on imports before obtaining new legislation, according to Duke law professor Timothy Meyer.
He recommends using Section 232 trade authority, then offering Congress limits on that authority in return for legislation preserving the climate policy. The bargain would involve “codifying the president’s policies.”
Congress would put the policy into law while adding restrictions such as expiration dates for emergency actions and stronger judicial review. Meyer’s sequence starts with presidential action and ends with a legislative agreement.
The Gates and Rockefeller money behind the institution
Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation reported $4 million paid to Roosevelt and another $6 million approved for future payment in its 2024 return.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund awarded $200,000 in general support on June 22, 2026, following $200,000 awards in 2024 and 2022. Each covered 24 months.
MacArthur awarded $1 million in 2024 and $500,000 in 2025, covering three years and 26 months respectively.
Pivotal described its grant category as “flexible funding to spend as organizations see fit.” Roosevelt’s then-president, Felicia Wong, said the support would “amplify our work to build power,” expand its audience and increase its capacity to work on policies and people.
Give a new investment authority Federal Reserve backing
A new National Investment Authority would finance infrastructure and take ownership stakes in projects under Saule Omarova’s design.
The financing would include Federal Reserve purchases of its bonds, Fed backup support and a secondary Treasury credit line. Her objective is long-term investment “without reducing everything to annual appropriations.” Audits, annual reports and project-selection rules would remain part of the institution.
Satyam Khanna, an architect of Biden’s EPA Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, separately argues for greater tolerance of investment failures. When a public program’s loss rate resembles a bank’s, he says, “it is reinforcing the status quo, not transforming it.”
He favors assessing whole portfolios and using government purchase guarantees and price support to establish markets for green technologies.
Build factories the government owns
The government would produce critical energy equipment in its own factories under Joel Dodge’s recommendations.
He identifies next-generation batteries, transformers and the specialized steel used in transformers. Financing could come through the Defense Production Act, Energy Department loans, military authorities and investment funds connected to Trump’s Japan and South Korea trade agreements.
Dodge argues that Defense Production Act funding could “preempt permitting hurdles at the federal and sub-federal levels.” States and municipalities could own factories too, selling their output across state lines.
Tie industrial subsidies to stronger union influence
Companies receiving federal industrial support would face stronger labor requirements under Ted Fertik’s recommendations.
The former Working Families Party staffer supports the PRO Act, which he says “overrides state-level right-to-work laws.” He also proposes labor conditions on manufacturing subsidies and considers “card-check neutrality” requirements for companies receiving Defense Production Act investment.
His rationale connects policy to political organization: stronger unions could become a lasting constituency for climate policy, with greater influence over corporate investment and government decisions. He also favors restrictions on stock buybacks and measures discouraging offshoring.
Accept Chinese import dependence in selected industries
Former Biden White House economist Jonas Nahm and Daniel Driscoll propose “accepting import dependence in sectors where Chinese dominance is consolidated.”
They would use lower-cost Chinese technology while retaining American installation, maintenance, financing and grid-integration work. They identify current-generation solar panels as a sector where Chinese cost dominance is established.
They also support domestic production in strategically important industries, including next-generation storage, grid hardware, nuclear components and semiconductor inputs.
Direct grid investment and replace fossil-fueled equipment
A new National Grid Planning Authority would select major transmission lines. Penn law professor Shelley Welton also recommends higher allowed returns for preferred investments and “lowered returns on equity (especially for nonpreferred projects).”
Utility regulation, tax incentives and loan guarantees would steer investment. Welton additionally discusses requiring data centers without their own generation to accept power curtailment during reliability emergencies, citing an existing grid-operator proposal.
The changes extend into homes and factories. UC Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes cites an estimate of “roughly 1 billion machines” to replace “with clean electric alternatives.”
Her tools include cheaper electricity, charging infrastructure, financing and clean-heat equipment tax credits covering up to 30%. The incentives would encourage replacement of furnaces, water heaters and industrial heating equipment powered by fossil fuels.
Rewrite regulatory cost calculations and create a climate service
Federal agencies would change how they justify regulations under recommendations from former Biden economists Heather Boushey and Noah Kaufman.
When models cannot reliably compare costs and benefits, they write, “agencies should be guided away from producing net-benefit estimates altogether.” Agencies would explain known facts, uncertainty and value judgments, with quantified costs still an input. Multiple economic scenarios would replace single GDP forecasts underlying federal budgets.
Madison Condon’s National Climate Service would bring together federal climate science and local engineering and infrastructure information to guide homeowners, governments, financial supervision and adaptation spending.
Condon states a broader policy objective to “stop burning fossil fuels, as fast as possible.” The service she proposes would provide information and planning capacity.
Bypass some displaced workers’ rehiring protections
A rebuilt federal workforce would not automatically reproduce the agencies that existed before DOGE.
Sara Meyers, formerly chief of staff and COO of Biden’s CHIPS Program Office, writes that “these protections could be bypassed” when discussing displaced workers’ priority for rehiring.
She proposes genuinely redesigned positions and appointments outside the standard competitive process to recruit needed expertise without automatically restoring unnecessary roles or poor performers. She says the protections should not generally be circumvented.
knowing that "climate" anything is just money laundering, that USAID was just a liberal propaganda and money laundering scheme, that replacing billions of machines with all electric is unnecessary and unnecessarily placing a burden on the electric grid, this Gates/Rockefeller Chinese pandering juggernaut cannot be allowed to undermine our freedoms in this constitutional republic.
any movement towards the anti-American, anti-Liberty American mindset is a step backward into the corrupted government forms that pre-dated the founding of the USA. It's time to eliminate the influence of Woodrow Wilson on the future of the USA.