Like a manifesto, Project 2025 – Presidential Transition Project’s intent is radical.
It will re-carve our administrative offices and impose a conservative culture on citizens. It was written by the Heritage Foundation, a D.C. think tank that wants what many heavy right-leaning conservatives want — limited government, limited regulation of corporations and businesses, limited wealth tax, limited social services, a national Christian culture, and rather vague ideas of a “free civil society” with “traditional American values.”
Here is my dig in to areas that are of most concern to me.
Our democratic republic is a balance of not just the three branches of government, it is a balance between political parties and their respective philosophies on running the government and taking care of its citizens. This playbook disparages many who have worked for social justice and accuses the “liberal” side of imposing on society too much of their philosophy. Their intent is to coup the government and impose their “right” way.
Project 2025’s forward is an outline of “promises.” Promise to make the family the center of American life, dismantle the administrative state, defend the U.S.’s sovereignty against global threats and secure the “God-given” right to the “blessings of ‘ordered’ liberty.”
It literally rewrites the administration of the White House to fit an ultra-conservative, smaller yet more top-heavy government by giving more power to the executive branch over the legislative and judicial branches. Think how our state grants the governor administrative power which many, even Republican legislators, consider over-reach.
Project 2025 disparages civil service agencies. It would dismantle or decrease the benefits, pensions and security most currently have and allow thousands of employees to be fired at will to be replaced by “loyalists.”
Most concerning, but not the least as it is all concerning, is the elimination of the Department of Education including early childhood development funding under Head Start, which also includes nutrition assistance. Project 2025 emphasizes parental rights. Access to school curricula is now open to the public, parents do get to opt their children in or out of certain classes, they do have access to school boards — they already have parental rights. Federal financial aid for college students would be eliminated.
The Department of Health and Social Services would be renamed the Department of Life. Our public assistance falls under DHSS. Medicare would be replaced by Medicare Advantage plans, Medicaid would have a work requirement, a pro-life stance would be mandated (even though over 60% of Americans are pro-choice). The Affordable Care Act would be eliminated. National health care will remain wishful thinking for millions who want it. The work done under the Biden administration to get big pharma to reduce drug costs will be terminated. Social Security will be sunset as this document proposes to eliminate SS taxes. Without workers paying a share through a paycheck tax, Social Security will become insolvent.
The Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health are also disparaged. The NIH and CDC conduct needed research and provide educational notices on disease milestones such as research in cancer, Parkinson’s disease and dementia-related disorders. Certain politicians blame the CDC for many things, yet without the work of the dedicated medical researchers, many more would have and will die of preventable diseases.
Project 2025 will endanger the hard-won LGBTQ+ rights by promoting heterosexual marriage only and discriminating against transgender communities. It instills a fear of “wokeness,” critical race theory, gender equality and diversity/equity/inclusion practices. We should ask what is there to fear in being educated on our history, which indeed has many stains considering slavery, Native American atrocities, voting oppression, racism — areas where historical education is necessary to acknowledge and learn from. Critical thinking is …. critical! The alternative is an ill-educated and under-developed mass of humanity.
Another major concern is stripping the Corporate Public Broadcasting and defunding PBS and NPR, as they are considered “liberal media.” Is Fr. Brown liberal? The authors state PBS and NPR are not educational and denigrate Sesame Street. The Science Guy isn’t educational? Our local KBBI and KDLL stations inform on emergency announcements, community events, elections; they cover borough assembly and city council meetings. And the music! This would be a huge blow to the villages that rely on NPR for news and emergency announcements. Even Sen. Dan Sullivan supports funding Public Broadcasting.
It would reform and limit farm and agriculture subsidies and dismantle National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Did anyone hear the wonderful resolution honoring NERRS and their coordinated work with NOAA at the last Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting? NOAA does valuable work. The impact to all marine communities without their committed and disciplined research would be grave. Without it, climate disaster research and warnings for emergency preparedness would be terminated. Thanks to NOAA’s warnings in May, states were prepared for a more intense hurricane season.
The Environmental Protection Agency, implemented under President Nixon in 1970, watchdogs corporate pollution in our waters and lands, and us, would be eliminated. Without the EPA you can expect more bad air, more bad water, more corporate pollution because they crave their profits above all else. The EPA was able to ban pesticides like diazinon, and recently announced DCPA, a herbicide used on crops like cabbage and broccoli, is a danger to fetuses — a danger to the unborn. The dangers of PFAS and other plastics took way too long to be exposed as fighting powerful corporations is uphill and they will still get away with their profits.
Of course, Project 2025 attacks immigration and seeks to conduct mass deportations and reinstate separation of children from parents. Muslims would be banned and many deported. Dreamers’ legal status would be terminated.
The Department of Justice with the FBI would be completely reformed or eliminated and no longer be independent of the executive. Civil rights that are protected under the DOJ would be compromised. The Voting Rights Act would be in danger. Voter oppression and gerrymandering will go unchecked. The FBI investigative forces that go after political corruption will be gone.
While it professes to uphold the separation of church and state, it is infused with primarily conservative Christian-leaning objectives.
Our country is one of the largest and most powerful. While other countries will move forward with environmental protection, climate change awareness, health care, education, etc., the U.S. will decline as its populace will be dumbed down. We are a diverse country, we can and have lived together in a somewhat united way. Since Mr. Trump has come onto the political scene people have been led to believe respecting and honoring differences is weak. They say only one way, their way, can work and that is what this plan will force upon us. I suspect many will not go along with that.
There is more in this document that people need to be aware of. It is not just an outline of how to downsize government. While bureaucracies do get too heavy in regulation and policies, throwing it all away to a Heritage Foundation-funded playbook of destroying everything that supports justice and our civil liberties is really scary and really bad. The dizzying document is over 900 pages long and can be found online here at https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf.
Therese Lewandowski has lived in Homer for 42 years, is currently retired and enjoying life with family and critters on her hobby farm while keeping herself educated on civics and political topics.
