--- title: "A Government That Works for the People | Alexander Hendrix" canonical: "https://govthatworks.org/" description: "A Government That Works for the People \u2014 A Political Philosophy and Governing Plan for the United States, by Alexander Hendrix." --- A political philosophy and governing plan # A Government That Works for the People People Opportunity Security Equality A Stronger America > “Government should be judged by one question: does it work for the people it serves?”-Alexander Hendrix [Get the Book](/get-the-book) [Explore the Plan](/#platform) The governing method ## The Six Tests The book turns its philosophy into six practical questions for judging a policy before enactment and after implementation. 01 ### Name the Problem and Show It Exists What specific problem is the policy supposed to solve, and what evidence establishes that the problem exists? Many policies are enacted in response to a vivid event rather than a measured problem. Vivid events matter; they are often how the public learns that something is wrong. But a single case, however terrible, does not establish the size or the cause of a problem, and a policy built on a mistaken diagnosis can do lasting harm. 02 ### Assign Responsibility Which level of government and which institution will be responsible? American government is layered. The federal government, fifty states, more than three thousand counties, tens of thousands of municipalities and townships, and tens of thousands of school and special districts all exercise public authority, and many public services are delivered by private and nonprofit contractors.4 This structure has real advantages: it allows experimentation, local adaptation, and the dispersal of power. But it also allows failure to become nobody’s fault. 03 ### See the Policy From the Outside How does the policy actually work for a human being trying to use it? Most policies are designed by people who will never need to use them. They are evaluated on organizational charts, in budget tables, and in legislative summaries. The third test asks policymakers to look at a program the way a person applying for it would: What must she know? What documents must she gather? How many offices must she visit? How long must she wait? What happens if she makes a mistake? 04 ### Pay for It, in Good Times and Bad How is it financed in ordinary years, recessions, and emergencies? The fourth test asks how a policy is financed, not only in the year of enactment but over the long term, and not only in ordinary years but in recessions and emergencies. 05 ### Anticipate Harm and Build Safeguards Which rights, communities, interests, or unintended consequences may be harmed, and what safeguards exist? Every policy has costs beyond its budget, and every policy harms someone. The fifth test asks who might be harmed and what protects them. 06 ### Define Success and Schedule the Verdict What measurable outcome constitutes success, and when should the policy be modified or ended if it fails? The sixth test is the one American government most often avoids. It asks: What measurable outcome will count as success? When will we check? And what will we do if the policy fails? The whole plan ## Twelve commitments The book reduces its full argument to twelve commitments so a reader can see the governing architecture before entering the details. 01 ### Government is judged by what happens to people. Government is judged by what happens to people. Not by intention, ideology, or party. Every institution in this book is evaluated against the Six Tests set out in Chapter 4: does it protect freedom, secure equal citizenship, support human development, spread prosperity broadly, rest on democratic consent, and hold power accountable? A proposal that fails the tests should be changed, and I include my own. (Chapters 1 through 4.) 02 ### Every citizen’s vote should count the same, and districts should not be drawn to pick winners. Every citizen’s vote should count the same, and districts should not be drawn to pick winners. A constitutional amendment on democratic representation, paired with a statute that enlarges the House of Representatives to at least 585 seats, allows multimember districts with proportional ranked voting where states choose them, and requires independent redistricting. (Chapters 6 and 7; Amendment One.) 03 ### Congress should have to decide. Congress should have to decide. Extended debate should delay a vote, not replace one. A majority of the full membership of either chamber should be able to force a public debate and a recorded vote on a bill that has sat without action. Appropriations should continue automatically when Congress misses its deadline, so that a shutdown is a political failure rather than a national one, and the United States should never again threaten to default on debts it has already incurred. (Chapters 8 and 9; Amendment Three.) 04 ### Courts should be independent of politics and accountable for conduct. Courts should be independent of politics and accountable for conduct. Eighteen-year terms of active service on the Supreme Court, with regular appointments, a published and enforceable ethics code, and a neutral rotation for temporary service. Judges keep life tenure in the federal judiciary; what rotates is the seat, not the job. (Chapter 10; Amendment Four.) 05 ### A small set of rights should stop depending on who won the last election. A small set of rights should stop depending on who won the last election. Equal protection regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, or disability; the right to make decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and the end of one’s own life within defined limits; protection of individual conscience alongside guaranteed access to lawful care. Written into the Constitution, where a single statute or a single court majority cannot remove them. (Chapters 11 and 12; Amendment Two.) 06 ### Privacy should be a constitutional right in a digital century, and firearms policy should be settled as a matter of both rights and safety. Privacy should be a constitutional right in a digital century, and firearms policy should be settled as a matter of both rights and safety. A warrant requirement for government acquisition of nonpublic sensitive personal data for investigative purposes, including data bought from brokers; an individual right to keep ordinary firearms, together with the express authority to license, to require background checks, to regulate exceptionally dangerous weapons, and to remove firearms temporarily from a person shown to be dangerous. (Chapter 12; Amendments Five and Six.) 07 ### Emergency power should be temporary, reviewable, and paid for by a vote. Emergency power should be temporary, reviewable, and paid for by a vote. A declared national emergency should expire on a fixed schedule unless Congress votes to continue it, and emergency authority should not become a permanent alternative to legislation. (Chapter 13.) 08 ### Medical care should never bankrupt a household. Medical care should never bankrupt a household. A National Health Guarantee administered by the American Health Trust, a nonprofit federal corporation, phased in over roughly a decade, financed by a dedicated health contribution that replaces premiums rather than adding to them, with global hospital budgets, a national fee schedule, and negotiated drug prices. Chapter 17 states the gross federal cost, the private spending it displaces, the household net change by income, and the provider capacity the transition requires. (Chapter 17.) 09 ### The things a working life depends on should be affordable because we build and supply enough of them. The things a working life depends on should be affordable because we build and supply enough of them. Housing production grants tied to zoning reform, a Federal Social Housing Finance Corporation financed through a capital budget, universal assistance for the lowest-income renters, wages that rise with the median, sectoral bargaining, portable benefits, paid family and medical leave, child care capped as a share of income, an American Income Floor built on a child allowance and a reformed work credit, and American Opportunity Accounts that give every child an asset. (Chapters 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, and 24.) 10 ### The budget has to add up, and the arithmetic has to be public. The budget has to add up, and the arithmetic has to be public. The new commitments in this book are designed to be roughly deficit neutral against the current-law baseline. Repairing the baseline itself is a separate and larger task, and this book does not pretend otherwise: it requires roughly two to two and a half percent of gross domestic product in additional revenue or reduced commitments, and Chapter 22 names the candidates, including a value-added tax with rebates. Every figure is an author planning estimate, and Appendix E publishes the assumptions so that a reader can rebuild or refute them. (Chapter 22; Appendix E.) 11 ### Government should be organized around what it is supposed to accomplish, and it should be usable. Government should be organized around what it is supposed to accomplish, and it should be usable. Departments rebuilt around missions rather than accumulated history, with a published transfer map for every function that moves; one optional Public Services Account so that a person tells the government something once; enforceable service standards; immigration courts made independent under Article I; and a clear account of who actually delivers each promise, from federal agency to state to county to tribal nation. (Chapters 26 through 31; Appendix C.) 12 ### The plan must be testable, and failure must be published. The plan must be testable, and failure must be published. A Ten-Year National Scorecard with named baselines, targets, owners, and independent measurement, and a Rule for Failure: when a program misses its targets, the government says so publicly, explains why, and either fixes it or ends it. A political philosophy that cannot recognize its own failures is not a philosophy. (Chapters 36 and 37; Appendix D.) 37 chapters · 7 parts ## The governing plan The site follows the organization of the locked first edition. Each part moves from principles to institutions, policy, implementation, and measurement. Current framework Each deep-dive starts with the law, institution, or financing structure in force now. Book proposal Then it shows the specific constitutional, statutory, budget, or administrative change the book proposes. Potential effect Finally it explains how the change could affect people, including who may gain, who may pay more, and what remains uncertain. PART I ### What Government Is For The philosophical foundation: democratic humanism, freedom, markets, government, and the Six Tests used to judge public policy. View chapters - Chapter 1: Democratic Humanism - Chapter 2: Freedom Requires More Than Noninterference - Chapter 3: Markets Are Tools, Government Is a Tool - Chapter 4: The Six Tests PART II ### A Democracy Capable Of Governing Constitutional amendment, representation, Congress, fiscal continuity, courts, rights, privacy, firearms, emergency power, and the amendment process. View chapters - Chapter 5: The Constitution Was Built to Be Amended - Chapter 6: An Equal Vote in a Federal Republic - Chapter 7: Rebuilding the House of Representatives - Chapter 8: Congress Must Eventually Decide - Chapter 9: No More Government by Fiscal Crisis - Chapter 10: Courts That Are Independent and Accountable - Chapter 11: Rights We Should Stop Re-Litigating - Chapter 12: Privacy, Guns, and Social Guarantees - Chapter 13: Emergency Power Without Emergency Government - Chapter 14: Making Constitutional Change Possible PART III ### An Economy That Makes Ordinary Life Affordable Affordability, housing, health care, work, income security, ownership, food and rural America, and the federal budget. View chapters - Chapter 15: Why Things Become Expensive - Chapter 16: Housing Is Infrastructure - Chapter 17: Health Care Without Financial Fear - Chapter 18: Work Should Produce Security - Chapter 19: An Income Floor Without a Poverty Trap - Chapter 20: An Ownership Society for Everyone - Chapter 21: Food, Farms, and Rural America - Chapter 22: The Budget Has to Add Up **Related research deep dive:** [Reparations & the Racial Wealth Gap →](/reparations) PART IV ### The Foundations Of A Secure Life Education, care, justice, safety, and equal protection. View chapters - Chapter 23: Education From Childhood Through Reinvention - Chapter 24: Care Is Infrastructure - Chapter 25: Justice, Safety, and Equal Protection PART V ### A Government People Can Actually Use Executive-branch organization, public-service delivery, federalism, tribal nations, immigration, energy, water, and national capacity. View chapters - Chapter 26: Rebuilding the Executive Branch Around Missions - Chapter 27: One Door Into Government - Chapter 28: Who Actually Delivers: Federalism and Local Capacity - Chapter 29: Tribal Nations and the Duties the United States Owes Them - Chapter 30: Immigration, Citizenship, and Belonging - Chapter 31: Energy, Water, and National Capacity PART VI ### Freedom In The Information Age Digital rights, speech, manufactured reality, journalism, political parties, and public argument. View chapters - Chapter 32: A Digital Bill of Rights - Chapter 33: Free Speech in an Age of Manufactured Reality - Chapter 34: Journalism, Political Parties, and Better Arguments PART VII ### Governing For The Future National security, implementation, the first hundred days, and a ten-year test for whether the program actually works. View chapters - Chapter 35: Security Without Permanent War - Chapter 36: The First Hundred Days Are Not the Finish Line - Chapter 37: The Ten-Year Test - Conclusion: A Bright Future Is a Governing Choice ![Cover of A Government That Works for the People by Alexander Hendrix](/assets/img/book-cover-v28.jpg) First edition · 2026 ## Read the complete plan. The full arguments, objections, notes, appendices, implementation maps, scorecard, fiscal assumptions, and bibliography — 504 pages. [Get the free PDF](/get-the-book)[Get a Hardcopy](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKSS7F2M)[Read online](/reader) The paperback edition is now available on Amazon.