Project 2025 is a dense and detailed public policy road map over 900 pages long, developed to influence the functions of the US government for the long haul by the influential Heritage Foundation . This is a deep and thorough document which makes detailed policy and program recommendations for key White House staff, cabinet positions, Congress, federal agencies, commissions and boards. The plan goes so far as to outline a vetting process for appointing, hiring and educating the “right people” in every level of government to carry out this vision.
It is a corporate, libertarian, deregulatory dream and a threat to our democracy in that, within a framework of evangelical Christian values, projects a powerful “unitary” President with strong control over all federal agencies with the elimination of a non-partisan, knowledgeable, professional civil service and suppression of the federal agencies which support a modern civil society. It is a substantial threat to the stability, security, safety and freedom of opportunity for all Americans and their families. It neglects to respond to the needs of the majority of Americans who have trouble paying for food, gas, medical care, rent, child care; never mind saving for a mortgage, college, emergencies or retirement. Project 2025 rejects support for all but a financially secure nuclear family, cutting social safety nets, disinvesting from public schools, and restricting reproductive rights. It would force women out of public life. It is misogyny, seeing free women choosing lives outside of marriage and having children as a threat to American society.
Project 2025 is designed to eliminate or curtail the major national programs which attempt to mitigate these stresses. For instance, Project 2025 would eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Education and block grant Medicaid, and markedly impair agencies which provide family support which mitigate disparities across the nation.
Project 2025 is predicated on the Heritage Foundation’s adoption of the view that protecting individual liberty and personal freedom and autonomy are the foremost civic values. This represents a massive change in values in the public square over the past 60 years. Coping with the Great Depression and World War II, required values of cooperation, communal and personal responsibility and "neighborliness." Coasting through the era of prosperity starting in the 1950s (and magnified by persistent failure of government programs to solve major problems - such as substance use, gun violence, racial disparities and wealth inequality - while promoting unnecessary wars) the values of individual freedom and liberty came to predominate over the past three generations. This represented a major loss of "social capital," that is, the ability and involvement of people working together to solve civic problems, large and small, within a just, secular, democratic system. Thus there is a deeper aspect to Project 2025 based on an understanding of the atrophy of social capital in the United States. It is a corporate authoritarian roadmap to manage society in an libertarian, corporate, autocratic exploitive fashion, antagonistic to the daily needs and stresses of most families, supporting a strict community and a fierce government built around fundamentalist Christian religion.
It is important to recognize that there are inherent harmful contradictions involved in the way Project 2025 and its supporters actualize so-called personal liberty and freedom values and policies. Its prescriptions complement and implement the already existing foundational decisions of the “originalist” Supreme Court. The Court has promulgated opinions which have substantially impaired public safety (by constitutionally protecting individual gun ownership), elevated specific religious acts in public spaces (by allowing personal prayer on a football field), lowered the barrier between church and state, placed one person - the President - above the law, and legally impaired bodily autonomy and freedoms of a whole class of citizens (pregnant women). It seems the valued protection of liberty and freedom does not apply to whole segments of the population.
Project 2025 constitutes a great threat to the nation’s health and all citizens’ and families’ welfare. It is anti-democratic, a turn away from the possibility of equity, and a formula for an inhumane withdrawal of basic and necessary social services, civic structures, and family support for those in need that we have developed over three generations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To give you a sample of Project 2025’s point of view and attention to detail here is a sample of significant quotes with page number of the citation in parentheses: Section 3 Chapter 10 Department of Agriculture
“Despite the ongoing effort to expand school meals under CEP and the evidence of waste and inefficiency, left-of-center Members of Congress and President Biden’s Administration have nonetheless proposed further expansions to extend federal school meals to include every K–12 student—regardless of need….(including in) the summer as part of the “American Families Plan.” …To serve students in need and prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, the next Administration should focus on students in need and reject efforts to transform federal school meals into an entitlement program.” (303)
“Work with lawmakers to repeal the Dietary Guidelines. The USDA should help lead an effort to repeal the Dietary Guidelines.” (309)
Immigration Reform
Calls for the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security, and an end to the prohibition of apprehending migrants in sensitive places like churches, schools and playgrounds. It also suggests using the National Guard and active-duty military to assist with arrest operations on the border. Calls for a wall to be built on the Mexican border.
Project 2025 calls for consolidating other immigration agencies, increasing fees for immigrants and allowing a fast-track option for higher fees. The project advocates an end to the prohibition against apprehending migrants in sensitive places like schools, playgrounds and churches and suggests using active-duty military personnel and the National Guard to help with arrest operations on the border.
Head Start
Proposes the complete elimination of the Head Start program, which serves 833,000 children living in poverty. The elimination of this program will increase the cost of all childcare because there is already a lack of available spots for the number of children needing these services.
Education
Calls for the dismantling the Department of Education, supports the increase of public funds going to private or religious schools, and calls for repeal of improvements for protection of students in Title IX. Denies students in 25 states and the District of Columbia access to student loans because their school provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.
Section 3, Chapter 11 The Department of Education.
“Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” (319)
“The future of education freedom and reform in the states is bright and will shine brighter when regulations and red tape from Washington are eliminated.” (320)
“On March 14, 2022, the department published a…proposal increases the federal footprint in the charter school sector by ignoring statute and adding to the list of requirements imposed on charter schools.The new Administration must take immediate steps to rescind the new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on charter schools.” (331)
“Work with Congress to amend Title IX to include due process requirements; define “sex” under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth; and strengthen protections for faith-based educational institutions, programs, and activities.” (333)
Section 3 Chapter 13 Environmental Protection Agency
“The EPA…has (had) unachievable standards designed to aid in the “transition” away from politically disfavored industries and technologies….This approach is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables. This approach has also been applied to pesticides and chemicals as the Biden Administration pushes the “greening” of agriculture and manufacturing among other industrial activities. As a consequence of this approach, we see the return of costly, job-killing regulations that serve to depress the economy and grow the bureaucracy but do little to address, much less resolve, complex environmental problems. In some instances, these actions even work to undermine environmental efforts as they push industries overseas to countries whose enforcement of pollution-control requirements is seriously deficient—if indeed they have any meaningful requirements at all.” (418)
“EPA’s structure and mission should be greatly circumscribed to reflect the principles of cooperative federalism and limited government.” (420)
Healthcare
Calls for repealing the $35 per month cap on insulin for Medicare and ending the $2,000 cap per year on out-of-pocket expenses. Calls for a lifetime cap on Medicaid coverage, possibly limiting it to 36 months. Repeals the ability of the federal government to negotiate drug prices. Reduces the number of health conditions that qualify veterans for benefits.
Reproductive Rights
Calls for the abortion drug Mifepristone to be removed entirely from the market or limited to the first 7 weeks of pregnancy. It also calls for the Comstock Act to be enforced, which would most likely ban the mailing of Mifepristone, impacting all states even if they do not ban abortions. Calls for the withdrawal of HIPPA guidance that protects doctor and patient medical records related to abortion.
The word “abortion” appears 199 times in some form in the report, reflecting its extreme focus on this issue.
The authors call for the federal government to penalize states that require abortion coverage in private insurance by reducing their Medicaid funding by up to 10%. They also call on CMS to disqualify any provider of elective abortions from Medicaid.
The plan recommends that the next president replace the Biden administration’s Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force with a “pro-life task force.”
Section 3 Chapter 14 Health and Human Services.
Gender Identity/Definition of Family
Calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to declare that men and women are biological realities. It also defines a natural marriage as one man and one woman. Calls for the immediate elimination of the White House Gender Policy Council, which has been key in promoting access to contraception access, gender-based violence prevention and women’s health equity.
“Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.” (451)
“The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how catastrophic a micromanaging, misinformed, centralized, and politicized federal government can be. Basic human rights, medical choice, and the doctor–patient relationship were trampled without scientific justification and for extended periods of time. Excess deaths, not due to COVID-19, skyrocketed because of forced lockdowns, isolation, vaccine-related mass firings, and colossal disruptions of the economy and daily rhythms of life….Every one of the overreaching policies during the pandemic—from lockdowns and school closures to mask and vaccine mandates or passports—received its supposed legal justification from the state of emergency declared (and renewed) by the HHS Secretary. Tellingly, however, the threshold for what constitutes a public health emergency—how many cases, hospitalizations, deaths, etc.—was never defined.” (451)
“The CDC should eliminate programs and projects that do not respect human life and conscience rights and that undermine family formation. It should ensure that it is not promoting abortion as health care. It should fund studies into the risks and complications of abortion and ensure that it corrects and does not promote misinformation regarding the comparative health and psychological benefits of childbirth versus the health and psychological risks of intentionally taking a human life through abortion.” (454-5)
“Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world.” (457)
Civil Rights
Cuts DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and LGBTQ+ related programs in healthcare, education and workplaces. Proposes the federal government stop using the long-standing standard of “disparate impact” when assessing cases of discrimination. This standard has been used under Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
“The NIH Office of Equity,Diversity, and Inclusion, which pushes such unlawful actions, should be abolished. NIH has been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science. Instead, it should fund studies into the short-term and long-term negative effects of cross-sex interventions, including “affirmation,” puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, and the likelihood of desistence if young people are given counseling that does not include medical or social interventions.” (462)
“Allow states to have a more flexible, accountable, predictable, transparent, and efficient (Medicaid) financing mechanism to deliver medical services. This system should include a more balanced or blended match rate, block grants, aggregate caps, or per capita caps.” (466)
“CMS should allow states to ensure that Medicaid recipients have a stake in their personal health care and a say in decisions related to the Medicaid program. Personal responsibility and consumer choice for Medicaid recipients must go together as standard components of the safety net, especially for able-bodied recipients. Medicaid recipients, like the rest of Americans, should be given both the freedom to choose their health plans and the responsibility to contribute to their health care costs at a level that is appropriate to protect the taxpayer.” (467-8)
“Clarify that states have the ability to adopt work incentives for able-bodied individuals (similar to what is required in other welfare programs) and the ability to broaden the application of targeted premiums and cost sharing to higher-income enrollees.” (468)
“Providing funding for abortions increases the number of abortions and violates the conscience and religious freedom rights of Americans who object to subsidizing the taking of life.” (471)
“HHS/CMS should withdraw appropriated funding, up to and including 10 percent of Medicaid funds, from states that require abortion insurance coverage. DOJ should commit to litigating the defense of those funding decisions promptly to the Supreme Court.” (472)
“More recent COVID strains pose fewer health risks than the earlier strains, and the pandemic has been declared to be at an end. CMS should: Announce nonenforcement of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate on Medicaid and Medicare hospitals. Revoke corresponding guidance and regulations. Refrain from imposing general COVID-19 mask mandates on health care facilities or personnel. Pay damages to all medical professionals who were dismissed directly because of the CMS vaccine mandate.” (475-6)
“TANF priorities are not implemented in an equally weighted way. Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways. CMS should require explicit measurement of these goals.” (476)
“Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) and Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) are operated by the Office of Population Affairs in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health; PREP is operated by the ACF Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. Both programs should ensure that there is better reporting of subgrantees and referral lists so that they do not promote abortion or high-risk sexual behavior among adolescents. CMS should ensure that Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) proponents receive these grants and are given every opportunity to prove their effectiveness. SRA programs, both at ACF and at OASH and both discretionary and mandatory, should be equal in funding and emphasis.Qualitative research should be conducted on both types of programs to ensure continuous improvement. In addition, certain provisions should be employed so that these programs do not serve as advocacy tools to promote sex, promote prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities and school field trips to clinics, or for similar purposes. Parent involvement and parent–child communication should be encouraged and be a part of any funded project. Risk avoidance should be prioritized.” (477)
“Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations that maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family. Social science reports that assess the objective outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages); financial stress or poverty; or poorer behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes. For the sake of child well-being, programs should affirm that children require and deserve both the love and nurturing of a mother and the play and protection of a father. Despite recent congressional bills like the Respect for Marriage Act that redefine marriage to be the union between any two individuals, HMRE program grants should be available to faith-based recipients who affirm that marriage is between not just any two adults, but one man and one unrelated woman.” (481)
Section 3 Chapter 17 Department of Justice
“Prohibit the FBI from engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity. The FBI, along with the rest of the government, needs a hard reset on the appropriate scope of its legitimate activities. It must not look to or rely on the past decade as precedent or legitimization for continued action in certain spaces. This is especially true with respect to activities that the FBI and the U.S. government writ large claim are efforts to combat “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.” The United States government and, by extension, the FBI have absolutely no business policing speech, whether in the public square, in print, or online.” (550)
“(DOJ’s) memorandum directing the commitment of significant resources and energies to combating imaginary, politically convenient threats of violence toward members of school boards and their staffs during the heat of the Virginia gubernatorial race. There was no similar effort to investigate elected officials and other public officers who conspired with outside allies to target and harass parents who were merely exercising their constitutional and statutory rights.” (552)
Economy
Calls to cut the American Rescue Plan which created or saved 220,000 jobs, cuts overtime protections for 4.3 million workers and limits access to food assistance which an average of 40 million people rely on monthly. Calls for relaxing worker safety rules and removes restrictions of children working in inherently dangerous jobs. Restrict safety nets for farmers to unusual conditions. Calls for the elimination of Capital Investment Grant program which provides key public transportation support for communities.
Public Safety
Calls for the elimination of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that includes the provision of critical services for the public through daily weather forecasts and severe storm warnings. Reduces the requirement for revoking security clearances under vague criteria that increases the risk of politicization and expedites the security clearance for those deemed necessary for the administration’s “mission needs.”
Unitary Executive: Project 2025 calls for Trump to place the entire federal bureaucracy under the direct control of the president, including agencies that historically acted with considerable independence such as the Department of Justice. The blueprint proposes the elimination of civil service protections for thousands of government employees who could then be replaced by political appointees who are beholden to the executive. Heritage claims this policy, known as the unitary executive theory, would streamline decision-making, ensuring a more efficient government.
Comments (0)