# Responsible America — Policy Framework This document explains, in prose, the taxonomy encoded machine-readably in [`data/policy-sections.json`](../data/policy-sections.json). If the two ever disagree, the JSON file is authoritative for anything code reads; this file is authoritative for explaining *why* the taxonomy is shaped the way it is. ## 1. Three levels, not one flat list Every reform belongs to exactly one of three levels (`reform.level` in `data/schemas/reform.schema.json`): 1. **Foundational Commitments** — roughly 20-30 short, plain-language principles an ordinary citizen can read in a few minutes. These are a *summary*, not a substitute for the full platform; every foundational commitment should link to the full reforms that implement it. 2. **Renewal Plan** — the numbered American Renewal Plan itself. This is the platform's substantive core: currently scoped to at least 160 proposals, with no fixed ceiling. Everything at this level has been through the editorial workflow in `docs/editorial-policy.md` and is expected to eventually reach `publication_status: published`. 3. **Issues Laboratory** — proposals under active research, legal review, fiscal analysis, or public discussion. A proposal never moves from here to the Renewal Plan merely because it sounds appealing; it has to clear legal, fiscal, and editorial review with real (non-placeholder) answers to the 28-question Responsible America Test. A reform can move *down* a level too — nothing here is one-directional. If new evidence undercuts a Renewal Plan reform, it goes back to the Issues Laboratory rather than being silently deleted (see `docs/project-constitution.md`, rule 4). ## 2. Seventeen divisions, twenty sections The **17 major connected divisions** (`data/policy-sections.json#/divisions`) are how the site is organized for a reader — the top-level navigation and homepage structure described in `docs/project-charter.md`. They are the "connected parts of one system" framing: The American Renewal Plan, The $36 Trillion Problem, Guardrails for Democracy, Corporate Power and Political Money, The Middle-Class Recovery Plan, Supreme Court Decisions and Constitutional Loopholes, Government Secrecy and UAP Disclosure, National Spending and Military Accountability, Mental Health/Families/ Human Development, Healthcare and Prescription-Drug Reform, Education and American Competitiveness, Fair Banking and Consumer Credit, Clean Energy/ Environment/Resilience, Artificial Intelligence and Strategic Competition, the Citizen Action Center, the Issues Laboratory, and the Public Scorecard. The **20 lettered policy sections A-T** (`data/policy-sections.json#/sections`) are the actual *classification* every reform record is tagged with via its `section` field — a finer-grained working taxonomy than the 17 divisions, because several divisions (e.g. "The $36 Trillion Problem") span multiple distinct policy areas (tax, debt/management) that need separate sections to be useful for search and filtering. Each division maps to one or more sections; each section maps to exactly one division (see the `division` field on each section entry). | Section | Name | Division | |---|---|---| | A | Elections and Representative Government | Guardrails for Democracy | | B | Campaign Finance and Super PACs | Corporate Power and Political Money | | C | Lobbying and Government Influence | Corporate Power and Political Money | | D | Corporate Power | Corporate Power and Political Money | | E | Tax Reform | The $36 Trillion Problem | | F | Executive Power and Presidential Abuse | Guardrails for Democracy | | G | Congress and Legislative Reform | Guardrails for Democracy | | H | Courts and Supreme Court Reform | Supreme Court Decisions and Constitutional Loopholes | | I | Mental Health, Childhood, and Families | Mental Health, Families, and Human Development | | J | Education and Human Development | Education and American Competitiveness | | K | Healthcare and Prescription Drugs | Healthcare and Prescription-Drug Reform | | L | Banking, Credit, and the Federal Reserve | Fair Banking and Consumer Credit | | M | Work, Wages, and Economic Security | The Middle-Class Recovery Plan | | N | Housing and Homelessness | The Middle-Class Recovery Plan | | O | Environment, Energy, and Climate | Clean Energy, Environment, and Resilience | | P | Infrastructure and National Investment | The Middle-Class Recovery Plan | | Q | Artificial Intelligence and Strategic Competition | Artificial Intelligence and Strategic Competition | | R | Military, Defense, and Foreign Policy | National Spending and Military Accountability | | S | Government Secrecy, Intelligence, and UAPs | Government Secrecy and UAP Disclosure | | T | National Debt and Government Management | The $36 Trillion Problem | Each section carries a list of `subsections` — narrower topic tags (e.g. section B's `candidate-super-pac-coordination`) used for filtering and for linking related reforms together. Subsections are not a separate taxonomy level; they are slugs within a section, and a reform's `subsection` field must be one of its `section`'s listed subsections. ## 3. The Issues Laboratory topic list `data/policy-sections.json#/issues_laboratory_topics` enumerates subjects the master brief identifies as still needing balanced research before any position is drafted: immigration and border policy, policing and criminal justice, gun policy, reproductive policy, Social Security/Medicare solvency, agriculture and rural America, media/platform power and misinformation, and digital currency/financial privacy, among others. These are **topics, not reforms** — nothing should be published under them until real research produces a draft record with a genuine problem statement and balanced arguments on both sides. Do not treat this list as a queue to auto-populate. ## 4. The Responsible America Test Every reform — Foundational, Renewal Plan, or Issues Laboratory — is evaluated against the same 28 questions (`data/policy-sections.json#/responsible_america_test`), reproduced in full in `docs/editorial-policy.md` and `docs/research-methodology.md`. A reform cannot reach `status: approved` without real, specific, honest answers to all 28 — "would this still be fair if the opposing party controlled government?" chief among them. ## 5. What this taxonomy deliberately does not do - It does not rank sections by importance. Order in the JSON file follows the master brief's own ordering; it is not a priority signal. - It does not pre-decide how many reforms belong in each section. Sections with zero published reforms today (all of them, as of this initial buildout) are expected and are not errors. - It does not encode the Citizen Action Center or Public Scorecard as policy sections, because they are tools that operate *across* every section, not reform content themselves — see `docs/citizen-action-policy.md`.