Project 2025: Cheat Sheet for Tonight’s Debate.

Posted on | September 9, 2024 | Comments Off on Project 2025: Cheat Sheet for Tonight’s Debate.

Mike Magee

Donald Trump says he’s never heard of Project 2025. Denials aside, expect the term Project 2025 to come up multiple times in this evening’s debate. But you are less likely to hear the name Kevin Roberts. He’s been president of the Heritage Foundation, and the voice for Project 2025 until it became too hot to handle and Trump publicly threw him and the controversial 900 page document overboard.

But few loyalists deny that both Roberts and the Project’s policy objectives will be front and center if a 2nd Trump presidency were to prevail. Like Leo Leonard, the Chairman of the Board of the Federalist Society that engineered a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court, the Grand Old Party is rich in these shadowy figures. They are content to wield power behind the scenes, and work doggedly, sometimes for decades, to achieve their policy objectives.

As a result, the public is largely unaware of the full story. For example, you are probably unaware that Project 2025’s predecessor was the 7th edition of the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” released in the lead up to the 2016 election. 64% of its policy proposals were embraced by Trump in the first year of his presidency.

And you may be surprised to learn that 8 out 10 of the contributors to Project 2025 were members of Triump’s administration – including conservative fan favorites like Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cucinelli, adviser to the president Peter Navarro, Defense Secretary Chris Miller, and OMB head Russel Voight.

Off course, when you are dealing with a 900 page tome, its not surprising that most Americans get lost in the weeds and lose interest. So financial guru, Steve Rattner, has helped out by directing you to a few pages:

Page 326: Title I funding is a rural and red state favorites that has to go. It is a major funder of public schools in low income areas, and has supported the growth of charter schools. Nationwide projections suggested a 6% loss of teachers effecting nearly 3 million students. In some states like Louisiana, the projections are more dire with 12% of teachers left unemployed.

Page 337: Look for monthly payments for student debt for those who never gained their diplomas to rise from $78 dollars per month to $308 dollars per month. Biden’s proposed Student Loan Forgiveness would be a goner.

Page 365 & 440: Few are aware that the Inflation Reduction Act is mainly intended to aid our nation’s shift to renewable clean energy. And most agree it has been very successful, and has had a side benefit of helping to curb inflation. Other Biden legislation is targeted for destruction as well including the government’s ability to negotiate drug prices, and successful implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Page 458: 63% of all abortions now are first trimester medication abortions using mifepristone. As a result, the need for surgical abortions has declined from 1.5 million to just .4 million in the past year. Project 2025 asks that the FDA ban the use of mifepristone.

Page 468: If you’re low income and live in Wisconsin, hold onto you hat. This proposal places a lifetime cap on enrollment in the Medicaid program. This would result in 41% of Wisconsin enrollees losing their Medicaid benefits. Nationwide, 19 million of the 95 million Medicaid enrollees (that’s 5% of our population) would lose their health insurance coverage.

Page 482: Get ready for “familial in-home child care” because Project 2025 has Head Start, another popular program especially in rural counties and red states, up for the chopping block.

Page 524: Civil service employees enjoy a range of protections to prevent politically motivated threats to their ongoing employment. Project 2025 has identified 50,000 civil servants for reclassification as political appointees. This would greatly expand Trump’s executive power were he to be elected, essentially creating the “deep state” he’s been warning us all about.

Page 696: Here you’ll find the promise to condense seven tax brackets down to two – 15% and 30%. That would insure lower tax rates for the rich, and higher taxes for our lower-income citizens. The richy rich well remember Trump’s cutting their corporate taxes from 35% to just 21%. Project 2025 says Trump will double down and lower corporate rates further.

And of course there’s more. And you won’t hear Trump quoting chapter and verse of Project 2025 tonight. So what’s the point? It’s this. Regardless of the debate performance of these two candidates this evening, keep in mind that whether it be the Federalist Society or the Heritage Foundation, they have been working for at least two decades to achieve a theocratic autocracy – and they’ve gotten pretty damn close. They can smell victory.

So it is not enough to simply reject Trump. We can not limp to the finish line. To neutralize the Kevin Roberts and the Leo Leonard’s of our world, Republicans up and down the ballot (even the good ones) must be soundly rejected. The message must clear to reset our democracy. If you threaten our freedoms, as you have with women’s reproductive rights, you will never again successfully run for elective office in America.