First, do Liberals and Conservatives really disagree on public policy ?
I would argue they don't. "The system" divides them. The left called it "the establishment" the right "The media elite". We all agree we need a level playing field (eliminate corruption), that we cant use government to level the playing field if it is highly corrupt or highly inefficient. There were two major bills in Congress to establish transparency to get the financial system under control, the liberals sponsored Brown-Kaufmann (limits the size of banks) and the libertarian conservatives sponsored Audit the Fed. All told 3 Republicans voted for both, and 6 Democrats. Now you could pick another issue, but you'd get something like 10% of the US Senate that would resist special interests to defend the taxpayers if it might cost them their jobs.
What do we want?
Clean efficient government that sets the ground rules and lets people have control of their lives. So I would argue that fighting corruption and waste is such a huge task that the conservatives, the libertarians, the liberals and the hippies, could all work together draining the swamp of corruption and waste for a good 10 years before they had to go back to slugging it out over the percent of the economy that is public vs private.
So we have to give in to each other to work together. So what are the common principles for this temporary coalition?
1. Get our financial house in order: Cut deficit spending and get private debt to not threaten the entire system.
Concessions:
2. We should look all over the world and our states to see what is working and set our goal to come close to that in our own economy and work force capability