Washington, D.C. – On September 17, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. (I, D, WF-Sag Harbor) traveled to the nation’s capital to meet with dozens of members of Congress, State and Local officials and business and community leaders for the No Labels National Ideas Meeting. The meeting served as the kick-off to a yearlong process that that will set a vision for where America needs to go and how we get there.

“Washington has become too complacent and too accepting of gridlock as the natural order of things. It’s not,” said Gov. Jon Huntsman, Co-Chair of No Labels. “The National Strategic Agenda is a big idea, and it’s simply the right idea at the right time. It directly involves citizens in the process and will help our nation’s leaders rediscover the lost art of policymaking.”

The goal of this exercise is to develop a comprehensive policy document – with input from people across America – by October 2015, just as the presidential election is heating up.

Assemblyman Thiele stated, “I am thrilled and honored to be one of about 100 state and local elected officials from across the country participating in this groundbreaking event and process. I thank former Governor and Ambassador John Huntsman for his leadership with No Labels and for giving me the chance to participate. I look forward to working with my colleagues, who share the same passion and interest in consensus building as I do, to help guide the future of our country.”

No Labels – a national movement dedicated to a new politics of problem solving – is calling for America’s leaders to support a new governing process to build a National Strategic Agenda. The Agenda includes four goals – chosen with input from a nationwide survey that No Labels conducted last fall:

• Create 25 million new jobs over the next 10 years;

• Balance the federal budget by 2030;

• Secure Medicare and Social Security for the next 75 years; and

• Make America energy secure by 2024.

The National Strategic Agenda will be created with input from people across America beginning with the National Ideas Meeting. Subsequent events in New Hampshire, Iowa and elsewhere will enable No Labels to take the pulse of people across America and to ultimately forge agreement on a full policy plan to achieve the goals of the National Strategic Agenda. More than 80 members of Congress have endorsed the process to create the National Strategic Agenda.

“No one has ever tried this approach before, which is one of the reasons why people are so energized by it,” said No Labels Executive Director Margaret Kimbrell. “I spent a week in August talking to people about the National Strategic Agenda at the Iowa State Fair and the response was unbelievable. People just want to be a part of an inclusive process where everyone can have a stake in the outcome.”

The National Strategic Agenda is not just another policy plan, because the specifics of how its four signature goals are achieved will be filled in over the next year through a rigorous and deliberate process.

“Many of our leaders say they want to unite – not divide – our country, but no one ever says exactly how this can be accomplished,” said No Labels Executive Director Margaret Kimbrell. “The creation of the National Strategic Agenda is precisely how we unite our leaders and move the country forward in support of common goals.”

The completed National Strategic Agenda will be unveiled in New Hampshire and Iowa on October 5, 2015.

No Labels will work to inject the agenda into the presidential debate by activating its network of citizens, members of Congress, and state and local leaders across America. No Labels’ goal is for the next president to call for a National Strategic Agenda and use No Labels’ Agenda as the framework.

Although Washington, D.C. has been consumed by gridlock in recent years, various state leaders and legislatures have made notable progress in their respective states.

“These challenges we’re discussing on the 17th aren’t just Washington’s problem. This is a problem for my home state of Iowa as well as the other 49 states,” said state Senator Jeff Danielson, D-Iowa. “Most state leaders are used to working across the aisle so they need to play a big role in pointing the way forward. Good jobs, a balanced budget, a strong social safety net and energy security … these are challenges we all need to pull together to solve. And there isn’t a moment to waste.”