You just read the condensed Mobility State proposal.

The most common pushback I get, from both left and right, boils down to two words:   “Nice brochure, but that’s just Scandinavia with better branding — and America will never pay for it.”

Wrong on both counts. Here’s why this package is cheaper, structurally different, and politically plausible in the actual United States we have in 2025.

1. This Is Not Even Close to Nordic-Scale Spending

Nordic social democracy runs at 45–55 % of GDP, funded by 25 % VATs and crushing payroll taxes.

A full-bore Mobility State toolkit — all four pillars, generously sized — adds roughly 3–5 % of GDP in new spending. That’s in the same financial ballpark as:

• the Trump-era Opportunity Zones + Child Tax Credit expansion, or
• one single year of the CARES Act (which was 25 % of GDP and passed in a weekend).

Rough cost envelope (2025 dollars):

• Universal Opportunity Accounts (“baby bonds on steroids”): ~$150–200 bn/yr
• True portable benefits (mostly re-plumbing health insurance): near revenue-neutral
• Modern GI Bill for economic transitions: ~$80–120 bn/yr
• Housing mobility + supply-side reform: revenue-neutral or growth-positive

That’s not “Sweden.” That’s “GI Bill 2.0 + Swiss health system + YIMBY zoning reform.” Congress has done bigger things when it feels the heat.

2. It’s Built for American DNA, Not European DNA

Social democracy tries to make capitalism less capitalist.

The Mobility State accepts that America is never going to be a low-immigration, slow-change, high-tax society — and instead gives regular people the shock absorbers and springboards the trust-fund kids already have.

3. The Pieces Are Already Passing in Red and Blue States

This isn’t theory. Fragments are becoming law right now:

• Utah (deep red) passed portable benefits for gig workers
• Montana, Florida, and Texas pre-empted local zoning to force more building
• Connecticut and several red states are piloting baby-bond/opportunity-account programs
• Bipartisan Forever GI Bill expansions keep sailing through Congress
• Both Trump and Biden campaigned on federal housing-supply incentives

When politicians are forced to actually solve problems instead of posture, this is the compromise zone they land in.

4. It Lets Both Sides Claim Victory

Left gets: breaking employer power, de-rigging zoning and licensing, real help for the precariat and immigrants.

Right gets: no open-ended entitlements, pro-entrepreneurship, pro-family formation, lower regulatory burden on small businesses.

Everyone gets to say they’re “saving capitalism from the oligarchs” instead of surrendering to them.

Bottom Line

America is not going to become Denmark.

It also doesn’t have to accept a future where only inheritors and Google employees can take career risks.

The Mobility State is the narrow, affordable, American-grained path that threads the needle between those two dead ends.

And the door is already cracking open — in red-state legislatures, blue-state pilots, and bipartisan bills that nobody bothers to culture-war because they actually work.

The question isn’t “Can we afford it?”

It’s “Can we afford to keep telling the next generation the ladder is gone?”