U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, a Democrat from New York, and Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, were the keynote speakers at a conference this week unveiling a number of radical ideas meant to inspire change in U.S. policy on areas such as health care, climate change, and energy efficiency. Both senators, who say they are good friends despite political differences, said they believe the country needs courage and compromise to make the radical changes they say are needed to solve some long-standing problems. VOA's Marissa Melton reports from Washington.

The theme of the Ten Big Ideas for a New America conference, hosted by the nonpartisan New America research group this week was, well, the Ten Big Ideas in the title, proposals by scholars on election systems, economics, health care, retirement, and higher education to improve long-standing problems in U.S. policy. But the big-name speakers, Clinton, Graham, and New America founder Ted Halstead, focused on a broader idea. Each said the results of November's congressional elections, in which Democrats gained control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, signals a new feeling in the nation that this is the time for a new approach to old problems.

Halstead said there is support now for aggressive change in U.S. policy, after more than a decade of Republican control in Congress. "The political moment in America now is so ripe for big ideas. No question, the recent election was as significant turning point in American political history. As we all know, it was the end of conservative political domination of Congress that began in 1994. But what was so interesting about this recent election and this new era in American politics is that the pendulum has not swung back to traditional liberalism. Rather, this new era belongs to those who are willing to step outside of the partisan fray and offer the American people what they most want, which is bipartisan cooperation on bold reforms to solve our national problems..."

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