Democratic policy veterans are assembling “Project 2029,” a set of policy ideas meant to give a future Democratic president ready-to-use proposals, including a push to curb everyday consumer irritations such as junk fees, spam calls and hard-to-cancel subscriptions.
A group of Democratic policy veterans is developing Project 2029, a governing blueprint aimed at giving a future Democratic president a “ready-to-go” set of policy ideas, including an effort to crack down on what its backers call the “annoyance economy.”
Chad Maisel, the project’s executive director and a former White House Domestic Policy Council aide in the Biden administration, said the effort is meant to ensure that a future administration has “a bookshelf full of really bold, transformational ideas” that can be deployed quickly. Maisel has been working with Stanford economist Neale Mahoney, the director of Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, on proposals focused on consumer hassles that waste time and money.
Maisel and Mahoney estimate those hassles cost American families at least $165 billion a year in wasted time and lost money, a figure they outlined in a policy brief published by the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative.
The proposals build on the Biden administration’s 2024 “Time is Money” initiative, a package of planned rules and regulatory actions intended to reduce headaches for consumers. In their annoyance-economy agenda, Maisel and Mahoney propose:
- Creating a standardized system to make it easier for people to file insurance claims online.
- Reining in the use of “prior authorization” in health care, which requires insurer approval before certain tests, prescriptions or procedures.
- Adopting “click-to-cancel” rules so canceling subscriptions is as easy as signing up.
- Expanding efforts to combat junk fees and other hidden add-ons.
Maisel and Mahoney argue that the market often fails to solve these problems because of limited competition, gaps in information and predictable consumer behavior that companies can exploit.
They also point to industry pushback against earlier consumer-protection efforts. In their policy brief, they say the airline industry spent heavily opposing a proposed rule that would have required cash refunds for significant delays, and that the Trump administration scrapped that rule in late 2025. They note that telecom industry groups also sued to block the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed “click-to-cancel” rule.
Project 2029 is still in its early stages and plans to release additional proposals on a rolling basis over roughly the next year.
