Project 2025 is more than just a benign collection of policy ideas; it’s a blueprint for transforming the American government across multiple levels. Crafted by the Heritage Foundation and conservative leaders, the plan lays out sweeping changes from taxation to healthcare. This article lists the top 10 most consequential policies that could shape the country’s future. These proposals, if enacted, could impact millions of lives and redefine the balance of power in the U.S. government.

It’s been a long road, but hopefully, the trek has been worth it. Many of us may have never heard of Project 2025 when we started. Many others knew only cursory things about it—maybe we thought it was the Trump administration’s plan to make Donald Trump King (it isn’t), or perhaps we thought there was much to do about nothing. Hopefully, we have been disabused of these notions.

We’ve learned that Project 2025 was created in response to the realization that the first Trump Administration failed to accomplish most of what the Heritage Foundation wanted it to do because it did not have a plan for how to do it, and we’ve learned who is behind it and the significance of who they are—the nation’s most influential conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, and hundreds of individuals involved in the first Trump Administration, including his chief of staff and his top immigration advisor.

We’ve learned about the four main objectives of the Project – the big things they want to accomplish – what we referred to as the Four Pillars:

1. Restoring the Family as the Bedrock of Society
2. Dismantling the Administrative State
3. Securing Sovereignty, Borders, and Resources
4. Protecting Individual Liberty

We’ve explored some topics from the 900 pages of policy proposals and how they would make those objectives a reality.

We’ve learned about the potential consequences for many groups of people across the country, as well as some broader consequences related to significant changes to the very fabric of how we govern, such as a greater concentration of power in the Executive branch that will alter the essential balance of power in our government for possibly generations to come.

To paraphrase Andy Dufresne, near the conclusion of The Shawshank Redemption, if you have made it this far, maybe you’ll be willing to go a little further.

We talked so much about policy that it’s easy for it all to run together. For the conclusion, I decided to try and condense the hundreds of different things we’ve talked about into what I think are the top ten most consequential policies that Project 2025 recommends the next Republican president attempt to make a reality.

We’re going to split them into two groups of five – the ones the president cannot do by themselves without the support of Congress and conclude with the ones the president does have the power to make a reality by their directives or orders.

The Top Five Changes from Project 2025 That Could Happen If the Republican Party Controls Congress

Here are the five most consequential policy ideas from Project 2025 that the president can enact if a majority Republican Congress is willing to write or change the legislation making them law.

#5—The Midnight Rules Relief Act— While not directly mentioned in the previous posts, this proposed rule directly supports the idea that while some plans would change policy directly, while others would influence dramatic changes in the ability to make policy in the future. The Midnight Rules Relief Act is an important part of Project 2025’s broader strategy for reshaping governance. This Act allows for expedited reversal of regulations issued late in a prior administration’s term, often referred to as “midnight rules,” without the need for the lengthy and complicated repeal process that is currently required. Essentially, it would give Congress the ability to pass a single resolution that invalidates multiple regulations enacted in the final months of the outgoing administration and which could destabilize the country. This makes it a powerful tool for quickly undoing policies that may have been pushed through at the last minute. It’s anyone’s guess how many months back a Republican Congress might determine constitutes the “final months” of a president’s term: one month, three months, or even six months?

If implemented, it could roll back regulations on labor rights, environmental protections, and more, dramatically shifting policy outcomes with far-reaching consequences virtually overnight. The Midnight Rules Relief Act is particularly significant because it changes the playing field for future administrations, enabling one administration to dismantle the policies of the previous one in an easy and dramatic fashion while causing chaos within the institutions of government and among the people. This rule would require congressional legislation to take effect, hence why it’s on this list. It starts off the top 5 because it will make a lot of these other changes easier, and not in a good way.

#4—Privatizing the Veteran’s Administration Healthcare System—The idea would be to “improve” it, not to make it less expensive. For the millions of veterans who rely on it, it will profoundly affect their health care, and the reality may not be as nice as the theory proclaims.

#3 — Overhauling Medicaid/SNAP/TANF/School Lunches – Overhauling means changing eligibility criteria and adding additional work requirements. Those sound great to many people who think getting food stamps means you’re a lazy, indigent moocher. But this will make things so much harder for the struggling people who don’t need an additional burden. If we had better support in areas such as affordable childcare, maybe we could make this work. But addressing both simultaneously doesn’t seem to be in the cards. This overhaul also includes the Project’s proposal for cutting funding for school lunches. 30 million kids rely on school meals. Kids can’t learn properly when they’re hungry. If they can’t learn properly, they’re not going to succeed. For many of them, these school meals are the only reliable source of nutritious food they can expect daily. But sure, let’s cut funding for that; it’s a great idea.

#2 – Tax Reform – Project 2025 proposes simplifying the federal income tax system by replacing the current seven tax brackets with just two: 15% and 30%. It also suggests eliminating many deductions and credits, impacting a wide range of taxpayers. The problem? This would impact huge numbers of people by raising income taxes on 95% of Americans – everyone making less than about $230,000 a year (or $460,000 for married filing jointly). Considering how many people are barely getting by, it’s not difficult this burden will be for tens of millions of families. Do you have an extra $3,000 lying around to send to the IRS?

#1 – Eliminating Head Start – I’m putting this at number one, even before tax reform. Head Start is essential for giving millions of lower-income children the help they need. Without it, they will enter school behind their peers and may never be able to catch up. Those familiar with child development and early childhood education know it’s almost impossible to understate how bad of an idea this is.

The Top Five Changes from Project 2025 a President Can Make Happen by Themselves

Of course, when we say by themselves, we mean the president can issue the orders that become “law.” The president wouldn’t need cooperation from another branch of government to make any of these five things happen from a policy standpoint; they’d only need civil servants willing to implement them. In my view, these are the biggest ones to pay attention to.

#5 – Reversing Climate Change Policies – Many conservatives will cheer this. I happen to agree with scientists who believe climate change caused by man is real, so I think reversing a policy that works to address problems such as a notable increase in deadly storms is a really bad idea.

#4 – Directing Full Enforcement of The Comstock Act – Conservatives are fully onboard with more robust enforcement of this law from more than one hundred years ago because it will target the shipment of abortion materials (like mifepristone) through the mail. It will also allow the government to restrict other things, like pornography and anything else the government declares that falls under the vague description of “obscene.” People get up in arms about the perception that the government asked Facebook to take down a post about a COVID-19 cure. How will they feel about the government defining “obscene” to encompass anything objectionable as determined from a deeply conservative viewpoint?

#3 – Transforming Our Relationship With NATO/Cutting Off Ukraine – In other words, pulling out of NATO while cutting off the aid, which is a literal lifeline for another sovereign nation fighting for its rights. Our presence in NATO is possibly the single biggest deterrent to worldwide aggression against its member countries. If people think it’s a bad idea to support Ukraine how we are, just wait until we pull out; Russia takes them over and then proceeds to move on to the next country, then the next, and the next. A similar thing happened 80-90 years ago, and people made similar arguments at that time – “it’s their problem; we need to take care of the people at home.” How did that work out?

#2—Reshaping the Regulatory Agencies—Through executive orders, the president could consolidate or restructure federal agencies and bring them under direct Executive control. This would eliminate the independence that has guided their work for decades. People will not fully realize the significance of this transformation until it happens, and they won’t like it.

The most consequential thing coming from Project 2025 that the president has the power to make a reality by the force of their directive is…

#1 —Schedule F—Yes, we’re back to this one. Ultimately, I think this one thing has the biggest potential to end badly for the citizens of the United States, impacting generations to come. Remember, the president can enact this alone without congressional support.

 I strongly encourage you to return to the analysis on Schedule F.

This is no laughing matter and deserves serious consideration by everyone who cares about our country. If you need further convincing, consider this:  January 6th may not have happened if Schedule F had been fully in place, and that’s not a good thing. January 6th wouldn’t have happened… because the president would have directed the military to seize voting machines. That is unthinkable in a free country.

 Peaceful protestors would have been silenced by military forces—on our own soil. Despite having no proof, the Department of Justice would have been directed down multiple rabbit holes relating to theories of election fraud. All because the president (who still denies he lost the election four years ago) told them to. It is critical to realize this.

The ONLY reason we did not have mass chaos and the biggest constitutional crisis since the Civil War is that the full implementation of Schedule F was NOT a reality at that time—because good people, who were not beholden to the president, stood up and refused to break laws as he asked. Instead, they did what was right. Schedule F will replace all those people with those whose #1 priority will be “Will my decision make the president happy and help me keep my job?”

Make no mistake: If the Donald Trump ticket wins the 2024 election, the executive order governing Schedule F will be reinstated and become reality because only the voters can stop him by refusing to elect them.

Final Thoughts About Project 2025

Donald Trump

As we wrap up the deep dive into Project 2025, I want to ensure we cover all the important concluding points.

First, the more people learn about Project 2025, the less they like it. That is consistently clear from polling. A recent poll by Navigator Research showed that only 13% of respondents had a favorable view of Project 2025, while 52% viewed it unfavorably. The remaining 35% were ‘unsure’.

More problematic for Trump was that 48% of respondents agreed that Project 2025 “very accurately” or “somewhat accurately” describes what Trump stands for. If you do the math, more than 40% of people think something they don’t like can be accurately tied to one of the two major presidential candidates. That’s a problem in an election that a slim margin of the electorate will decide.

So, it is not surprising that candidate Trump wants to convince voters that he has nothing to do with it, knows nothing about it, thinks many of its ideas are stupid, or whatever combination of the three will gain him the most political ground.

We have pointed out that Project 2025 is not a product of the Trump campaign. It is a product of the nation’s most influential conservative think tank combined with hundreds of people who have worked with Trump and have had his ear over the years.

It is also Trump’s prerogative to deny he has anything to do with Project 2025. If we, the electorate, believe Project 2025 is a bad idea, it is up to us to decide how much we believe those denials. To that end, we need to point out what we mentioned in the very beginning.

The backbone of Project 2025 is the 900-page policy manual called The Mandate for Leadership, a detailed manual of policy suggestions for a Republican president created by the Heritage Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation has produced similar documents, also called The Mandate for Leadership, twice before. Both times, they contained all the policy suggestions they believed the Republican president should make a reality to advance an ideologically conservative transformation of government.

They did it in 1981 for President Ronald Reagan and again in 2016 for President Donald Trump.

Donald Trump can deny he intends to pay any attention to the Project 2025 proposals that 91% of people don’t really like. He cannot deny the historical precedent to include his own track record of implementing Heritage Foundation wishes, which should give us pause.

According to the Heritage Foundation’s internal assessments, Ronald Reagan made 63% of the proposals from 1981 a reality, including the idea that became Ronald Reagan’s defining economic policy—trickle-down economics or Reaganomics.

Again, Donald Trump can deny that he will make any of their ideas a reality. However, the record shows that when the Heritage Foundation gave him a similar set of policy proposals back in 2016, he implemented 60% of them. Heritage Foundation playbooks provided to past Republican Presidents have enormously impacted our nation; therefore, this version should be examined carefully rather than ignored.

If you’re in the camp that thinks many of the Project 2025 policy proposals aren’t the best thing for the country, these facts will be ones you want to keep in mind when you make your best and most thoughtful decision on who to vote for in November.

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Image: Pamela Reynoso

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