FixUS

FixUS is committed to engaging fellow citizens to better understand and address our nation’s growing divisions, dysfunction, and distrust in our political system. Through a number of research projects, public engagement efforts and partnerships, we seek to bring attention and visibility to these issues, build support for necessary changes, and ultimately help to regain a sense of shared aspirations, values, and a belief that there is more that unites us than divides us.

FixUS is housed within the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact. It has become increasingly clear to the leadership of the Committee that meaningful progress on a range of pressing policy issues will not be possible until the underlying division, dysfunction, and distrust in our politics are remedied. The political environment most conducive to enacting solutions—one that focuses on policy over politics, the long-term over the immediate, and a willingness to compromise and make hard choices—does not currently exist. In 2018 the Committee soft launched FixUS and began a series of projects to guide our path forward, including undertaking a Roadshow and Listening Tour, hosting multiple conferences with thought leaders and experts on the topics of polarization and partisanship, and undertaking an extensive landscape review of existing groups and literature focused on these issues. We began hosting a recurring breakfast meeting of democracy reform groups, with over 100 representatives participating to date to share updates and strategies. These efforts led to an official launch of FixUS in January of 2020.