A National Defrag: How to Fix Washington Without Leaving Anyone Behind

By Sean Johnson

Everybody can see it. Nobody is going to fix it.

Social Security is scheduled to cut every check by about a fifth in 2032. The country pays more in interest on its debt than it spends on its entire military. Congress hasn't passed its spending bills on time since the 1990s. Both parties have had their turn at the wheel, and the numbers got worse under both.

Sean Johnson got tired of waiting. A sixth-generation Mississippian who has run newspapers, worked campaigns, spent fifteen years in economic development and owned a restaurant, he sat down with the government's own numbers and worked out, piece by piece, what a better system would look like.

A National Defrag is that plan. In plain English, with the arithmetic shown:

A president who serves one twelve-year term, can't be bought, can't campaign, and can be fired.A hundred-member Council of the States in place of Congress, chosen by citizen juries, not donors.Every federal law expires unless it earns renewal.No income tax, no payroll tax, no April 15th.Honest money, and a public digital dollar with your privacy written into the founding law.A retirement account with your name on it that no Congress can touch.A real floor under people who can't work, and a work bonus in every low-wage paycheck.A country that pays off its mortgage.A leaner defense, and a year of national service.Washington's job, and your state's, finally spelled out.

And one promise that runs through all of it: nobody already in the system gets left behind. Today's retirees keep every dollar. The years you've already paid in still count. Veterans keep what they were promised.

This is not a book about left or right. It's a design problem, and designs can be fixed. Every chapter opens with a story from a life spent watching government up close, from a stolen state senate election to a Jackson bar where legislators never paid for a drink, and ends with questions to argue about at your own table.

The budget model behind every number in this book is public. Open it on your phone, move any slider, and see what happens.

Agree with some of it. Argue with the rest. That's the point.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HPDTRBY1
• ISBN13: 9798165716317
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 149 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.3" x 5.5"