D10 · Pillar D · Human Flourishing & Societal Infrastructure
Digital public infrastructure / once-only government
A Federal Digital Public Infrastructure Act: a federal X-Road-equivalent interoperability layer so agencies can query each other’s data on an authenticated, audited, per-request basis (the once-only principle); a portable federal e-identity, separated from the Social Security number, designed for authentication; a direct-benefit-transfer rail for federal-to-household payments; and an open-source civic-infrastructure toolkit for state and municipal permitting, licensing, and benefits applications. Extends F3 and F4.
- 10-year fiscal
- −$70B netSavings
- Implementation
- Years 1–10
- Middle class
- Positive
- Planetary
- Modestly positive
Cost ~$18B; savings ~$88B · Medium confidence
Faster benefits, licensing, and tax interactions. No new household reporting burden under the once-only rule.
A smaller, shared operational IT footprint.
Global precedent
Estonia’s X-Road (since 2001; about 2 percent of GDP in annual administrative-time savings); India’s DPI stack (Aadhaar, UPI, DBT); Denmark’s mit.dk.
Lead mechanism
OMB (OFCIO); GSA; agency-specific implementation.
Bipartisan framing
Technical rather than partisan. Extends the Foundation Layer digital-government work already in Version 1, with once-only compliance as the measurable target.
Figures in this framework are illustrative directional estimates derived from publicly available data and conventional Congressional Budget Office budget-window logic. They are not official CBO scores. Any provision adopted from this framework would require formal CBO scoring before legislative consideration. This document is a policy white paper, not an introduced bill.